So long ago—another life.
I can feel your heartbeat.It's not a dream—remember us.
I can see it in your eyes.We'll find our place in time,
A place in time beyond the sun.We'll find our place in time,
A place in time to call our own.
--Amanda Abizaid--"A Place In Time"
Free "A Place in Time"! That's not an advertisement, but an imprecation. If you watched The 4400, a fun science fiction TV series (started last year and—hooray!—picked up again for this year), you'll have heard the gorgeous song in its intro. Lebanese-American Amanda Abizaid (viva emigrante!), a totally small-time (but shouldn't be) singer/songwriter composed and performed this brief ditty (the above are the entire lyrics of the munit or so that make up the song).
If you haven't heard it you can listen to it on the Bosshouse Music Web page Flash intro.
She starts off humming the extremely haunting bars
that form the backbone of the song, and croons softly
through the verse that's ostensibly a love lyric, but
carries a very gothic edge to it because of the way
the minor key clutches at your ear. It's soft rock,
but hardly as forgettable as you'd expect from that
genre. It almost feels as if she's going to break
into major key for the chorus, but somehow it loses
none of its creepy feel despite the modulation. Lori
and I actually used to sing "We'll find our place in
time, in space and time..." when we heard it on the
series, because of the theme of the series, and the
fact that the lyric felt as if it should treat on
something at least as exotic as the space/time
continuum. Abizaid only hints at such a stretch when
she says "A place in time beyond the sun."
So gorgeous song, right? Time to go buy the CD,
right?
Uh, nuh-unh. It turns out that, unfortunately, the
only way you can hear the song is by watching the show
or going to the Boss House Web site.
Viacom/Paramount, those notorious IP churls, are
holding on to the song with a vise grip. I'm not sure
why; the response to the song was tremendous, and
people are fairly clamoring to buy it. This should be good promotion for the series.
Here's's
just one of the forums discussing the matter.
Abizaid, when contacted by e-mail was originally very
generous in sending people MP3s of the song, but then,
in her words:
Thank you for your kind words about "A Place In Time". As much as I would like to [send out the MP3], unfortunately, I got a call from Viacom/Paramount Pictures this weekend saying I am not allowed to give out an MP3 since I do not own the song. If there's any way to get the song, they would be the one's to get in touch with. I hope you understand. Hopefully with all this interest in the song, there will be a longer version. Keep your fingers crossed.
Oh, they're crossed, alright. There's a lot more that's crossed, as well. Sometimes you just want to roach-stomp Big Media. Let's hope Viacom comes to their senses and release a soundtrack with a longer version of "A Place In Time", or at least free Abizaid to include it in an album. Until then, if we want polymer rather than bits, we have to content ourself with Abizaid's EP The Great Plan, which is very good, but not really offering anything quite as breathtaking as the 4400 theme song.