BSG (Mild Season Four Spoilers)

I have a strong preference for music without or with a light vocal element. This is because of two reasons I have been able to identify; the first is that I find it hard to keep music from constantly asking for my attention where there are vocals. I either try to figure out what’s being said, or I try to sing along, both super-annoying when you just want some pleasant background noise as you are working. Second is that few vocals really grip me, which is why I don’t like the majority of hip-hop and rap, because the vocals are the main element. Sometimes, especially with some of the newer stuff being produced, there’s something about the vocals that makes it more of an instrument than the center of a song. But usually I just want to find the instrumental version of a song, good examples of which are Hoedeplank by Opgezwolle and In the Club by 50 Cent, the former of which I am still looking for, in case someone can get it for me.

Anyway, I told you that story to tell you this one; lately, I’ve been getting back into Battlestar Galactica, the incredibly engaging, multi-layered SciFi show that got me completely hooked…until they postponed the last few episodes for a dog’s age. (When I mean the last few episodes, I mean the last episodes of the series.) So I had decided to take a break until those had aired and I wouldn’t have to wait for the conclusion of the series once I had caught up. So I had stranded at episode 04×06 or so when life happened. (Parents dying, etc.) I started watching again recently, and once again, I am hooked. The last episode I saw — oh, this is where the spoilers start — Starbuck and her crew came back from looking for Earth and they’d takena bunch of Cylons along with them. They wanted to help destroy the central reincarnation hub so that no Cylon could download into a new body when they died. (This because a few of them had seen an eternal life as something that blocked them from truly appreciating life.) During the mission Gaeta was shot in the leg by Anders (who looks a lot like Dane Cook, have you noticed?) and is brought to the infirmary. Where he first begged for his leg not to be amputated, he is convinced by Dr. Cottle that it’s a necessity in order for him to survive. He still, however, doesn’t want to “wake up without [his] leg,” so he doesn’t want a full anaesthesia, but a localised one. They cut away from the scene, almost entirely focussed on his frightened face, save for a few, quick shots of the doctor and his saw, right after you start hearing the whirring saw bite into his leg. Really powerful stuff, and masterfully acted, directed and shot. Later, two characters, I forget which, are talking about him, and how the doctor told him that if the thought of him having lost his leg overwhelmed him, he should sing, in order to cope.

This reminded me of a good friend of mine, who does the same thing. When afraid, she sings. When I heard those two characters mention that, because of this, I got sucked into the episode even further.

As they often do, the episode ends on a cliffhanger, and the last part makes a sprint for the finish, like an avalanche, the tension is built up so much it can split atoms. In this case Starbuck reveals something that she’s not supposed to be able to know, that the president’s cancer had returned and that she’d been hiding it. The president demands to know how Starbuck knows and she tells that the hybrid, a single Cylon, submerged in a nutrient gel at the heart of the Cylon base ship they took back from their mission, like a central, bionic computer, told her about the president’s cancer returning. The president immediately goes to the Cylon base ship to talk to the hybrid, who had been disconnected following the arrival at Galactica. Spurred on by the urge to find out how the Cylon knew about her cancer she orders it to be reconnected. Due to some other stuff happening at the same time (Boomer shooting one of the sixes) the moment the Cylon is reconnected it jumps the entire base ship away.

Now, the above might sound like a bit of a dull retelling of what happened. Trust me when I say that I am not doing it any justice whatsoever. The important bit is that Gaeta’s singing is laced throughout all these scenes. It’s so well done. The action and excitement intertwined with Gaeta’s lamentations. I’ve linked a video below that kind of cuts all of Gaeta’s singing bits together to give you a slight impression of it. This isn’t the best representation out there, but it’s the only one that I could find.

(Second, not such a good compilation.)

Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man
with my three wishes clutched in her hand.
The first that she be spared the pain
that comes from a dark and laughing rain.
When she first finds love, may it always stay true,
this I beg for the second wish I made too.
But wish no more, my life you can take,
to have her, please, just one day wake.
To have her, please, just one day wake.
To have her, please, just one day wake.
– Gaeta’s Lament