Culturalia: Over The Horizon:TTU

Culturalia: Over The Horizon

"It's always in their stares -- sometimes they tell me to my face."

A song that was originally about the alienation that therianthropes endured in late-20th-century America (and the yearning for a place to call home that came with it) got a facelift when LocationNewAtlantis gave theris a true homeland.

Meta-Data

Actual Creator

BaxilDragon

Release Date

1999

Word Count

700

Creator Comments

This is one of those pieces of culturalia where the historical
context is at least as powerful as the artifact itself.

Culturalia Data

Type

Song lyrics

Piece's Author

CharacterStuartRoseman / GroupTheHowl

Piece's Date

Late 1997 (though released on a 1998 album)

Era: EraWinterOfDiscontent

Significant Cameos and References

The "body by the riverside" that "they said ... was a werewolf" is based on a real murder in late 1997 that otherwise got little media attention.

(The specifics of this event have not yet been pinned down in canon. -B)

The line "Three dragons still face ten to life for flyin' slightly low" refers to GroupTheFlybyThree.
The epithet "baby killers" was popularized after the EventGoldMurders, where unknown assailants (widely suspected by conservative groups to be theris) fatally shot every living being on Matthew Gold's property, even his infant son.
"The right wing resurrects the Revelation line again": Even a year after TheChanges, it was by no means rare to hear that theris' arrival signaled the End Times and that CharacterDennisRedwing was the prophecied Antichrist.
The EventNewAtlantisRaising expedition, led by CharacterTashi (mentioned in the liner notes), is what prompted the 2007 lyrical revisions.

Trivia

The song ended up becoming something of a one-hit wonder for the band; though they initially found it heartening that such a socially conscious song caught such wide notice, later music historians would largely chalk its popularity up to the animal/human-voiced harmonies (which were novel at the time). The equally progressive anthems in their subsequent albums largely met with public indifference.