Livin on the Edge of the World

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOGtj5J3wBI

This song was written back in 1982, was not part of the live show that most of the other songs on this 1983 album were written for, but it had a tangential connection to the ideas from the rest of the album and seemed like a good one to include because of that.

Over the last few months, in blog entries like Just Geometry, Bees and Tangential Thinking, More Tangential Thinking and At Right Angles to Spacetime, we've been returning to some of the basic ideas behind my approach to visualizing the extra spatial dimensions. I've talked before about how I went for decades showing people the basic ideas of my approach, drawing little diagrams on napkins or whatever was available, but until I read Michio Kaku's Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension, I had always thought that my approach was useful for visualizing nothing more than the seven dimensions of our reality. Kaku's book gave me a way of thinking how my logic could be extended to ten spatial dimensions, but even seven is mind-blowing enough!

So, way back in 1982 I was already fascinated by the concepts of extra spatial dimensions, and that was a part of what I was thinking about as I created this song - if you are operating from a realm which is not confined to our 4D spacetime, from a fifth dimension which is somehow "outside" of our reality at another angle, then the title of this song is a way of thinking about that concept. Here's the lyrics:

LIVIN ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
- words and music by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)

What am I s’posed to do with you when you’re so far away
I need to have your near me
How am I s’posed to get the news, the issues of the day
Who’s gonna set me straight?
Hey hey hey

What were you tryin to say to me the day you made it clear
You said “Look inside yourself now”
But you don’t know the things I see, you’ve never felt the fear
As I stand before the mirror

Can’t you see I’m livin on the edge of the world
Livin on the edge of the world, hey hey hey

I’ve got to be stronger, gotta take control
Got to give my life some order
I can’t take it any longer, don’t know where to go
Then you tell I must grow

Well can’t you see I’m livin on the edge of the world
Livin on the edge of the world, hey hey hey

Sometimes I scare myself
I take me by surprise
Sometimes I scare myself
Believin my own lies

Can’t you see I’m livin on the edge of the world
Livin on the edge of the world
Can’t you see I’m livin on the edge of the world
Livin on the edge of the world
Can’t you see I’m livin on the edge of the world
Livin on the edge of the world
Can’t you see I’m livin on the edge of the world
Livin on the edge of the world
Can’t you see I’m livin on the edge of the world
Livin on the edge of the world
Livin on the edge of the world
I am livin on the edge of the world
Hey hey hey

Next: Rebecca Black and QWOP