Albert Einstein And How He Influenced Rock And Roll

Yes, Really!
I know what you're thinking (and okay, at some undetermined point in the future I will return D.A.R.P.A.'s telepathy helmet to them) and no, this is not your humble scribe trailing his clickbait cloak, lying or connecting two incredibly tenuously connected subjects.*
     First of all, we need to bring on the effects of relativity in the real world, as much as they ever intrude there: which were theorised by one Albert Einstein - you may have heard of him.  Broadly put, the faster you go, the shorter you become and the slower time passes for you.  Were you ever to actually hit C - the speed of light not the note - then your mass would increase to infinity as you contracted to a singularity, which would probably destroy the Universe.

CAUTION!  We all live here - do not jeopardise by speeding

     The other thing about travelling in space at relativistic speeds, which are those approaching a fraction of the speed of light, is that it can thrown off your social calendar a tad.  You see, as you whiz around the galaxy at 0.67 C, time passes much more slowly for you than it does for the folks back at home, who are existing at the measly pace of 0.0 C.  Thus, you wazz off to Altair, deliver your cargo (planoforming gigabots), and come back home.  For you, a trip of about 10 years.  Back home, perhaps 100 years have passed.  Your social calendar now needs chucking out the window, nicht war? as everyone you ever knew is now dust and ashes.
     Bummer.  Art?

The late, lamented Bob Shaw
(Whose "Serious Talks About Science Fiction" were frickin' hilarious)

     I mention that genial and genius Ulsterman Bob Shaw (whom I met briefly at a book-signing!) because he managed to construct a science-fiction murder-mystery short story where relativistic ageing is a major plot element.
     Where were we?  Oh - adrift just off the islets of Langerhans - hang on, no, that's a Harlan Ellison short story, isn't it?

<REBOOTS BRAIN>

   
     Right.  You may not be aware that South Canada's finest documentary maker, John Carpenter, got his break into films with a darkly comedic science fiction feature done on a miniscule budget: "Dark Star".  Art?

A view of the crew

     The horribly catchy title song is "Benson, Arizona" which is actually a real place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTa2vXL7FI8

     Therein a link to the Youtube.  The lyrics to the song have a poignant part, to whit: 

The years move faster than the days There’s no warmth in the light How I miss those desert skies Your cool touch in the night Benson Arizona, blew warm wind through your hair My body flies the galaxy, my heart longs to be there Benson Arizona, the same stars in the sky But they seemed so much kinder when we watched them you and I Now the years pull us apart I’m young but now you’re old But your still in my heart And the memory won’t grow cold

     You see what I mean?  The narrator's sweetheart has aged to senility whilst he traverses the heavens, remaining, if not eternally young, then a good slice of it.  

     <pauses to reflect on the human condition>

John Carpenter's only fictional film

     One conceit that your modest artisan likes about the song is that it's done in a country and western style - which I otherwise loathe - and reflects with hilarious irony on a perspective of the far distant future.

The English Patent
For sooth, just as our very favouritest South Canadian film director can create visual media on this topic, so too can our home-grown rock and rollers work on the topic of relativity, except in this case they were a bit more explicit.  Art?

An archetypically 80's cover design

     I refer, of course - obviously! - to Hawkwind's "Quark, Strangeness And Charm" and the first track thereof - "Spirit of the Age".  It's not made explicit, but this is a stream-of-consciousness lyric about a pilot or crewman aboard a starship travelling at relativistic speed, mourning the absence of his sweetheart.  Art?

I would've liked you to have been deep frozen too

And waiting still as fresh in your flesh for my return to Earth

     Poetic licence here: if our narrator is also deep-frozen (the "too" part), he's not going to be especially mentally fluent or precise.  Next!

Let's see you'd be about 60 now,

And long dead by the time I return to Earth

     This is a little more problematic.  I shall gloss over the "underage" line in the original, as this would get me into terrific trouble, and we shall thus imagine the narrator's girl as being 18 at the time of his departure.  If she is 60 by the time we hear this doggerel, then 42 years have passed; even if Our Narrator is about to make planetfall here and his journey is over, then - Art?

Epsilon Eridani: 10 light years distant and ready for planoforming gigabots

     That's an assumption.  We should probably add on 10 more years to the journey, just to be sure.  Then there's the time his starship remains in the Eridani system, which could be years and years: deploying their cargo, reviving passengers, helping them tame a planet - you know how it is - "Can you destroy this glacier?"  "We need a mountain pass carved out by H-bomb" "Does your epidemiology bay have a cure?" .  Thus, by the time our heroic narrator returns home, 104 years at the least have passed by, so his paramour would have reached 122 years at least were she to have survived.  Which - reading between the lines - is simply not possible in the dystopian future of which we speak.

Of course, I could be overthinking all this ...

"You are, Conrad.  You are."

* Er -