Bye Bye Miss Equestrian Sky

So here’s a thing I’ve been working on this summer. It’s a ponified song, and also it’s the biggest and most involved act of poetry I’ve ever committed in my life. All in all I’m pretty happy with how it came out.

American Pie is an interesting song. It’s maybe most well-known to today’s audiences because of Weird Al’s Star Wars version, but I honestly think the original is still a brilliant piece of music that deserves to be appreciated on its own and also through pony. And listening to it I found myself thinking, "This could be a Star Swirl song. Could I do that...?" And then it just kept poking at my brain until I did it.

Maybe a more practiced poet would be more free with their interpretation but I did my best to recreate the structure, themes and images of the original as much as I understood them, and as pony allowed. Which was quite challenging, because this song is quite cryptic in places.

It’s technically part of the Swirliad, and young Star Swirl sings it sometime after the end of The Crown of Night, but since it doesn’t seem likely to get into a story anytime soon I figured I would just post it on its own. This also raises the question of “Are prophecies spoilers, technically?”, but that’s probably a discussion for another time.

Long story short, after the fall of Luna young adult Star Swirl spends a long time lost in the wilderness, both figuratively and literally. One night while drowning his sorrows in a seedy dive somewhere he sits down at the piano and pours out his heart in magical song.

So here it is. Sung to the tune of American Pie by Don McLean, with rewritten pony lyrics by me: Star Swirl’s Lament, or, Miss Equestrian Sky.

My thanks to iisaw, SIGAWESOME, and FanOfMostEverything, for prereading and giving feedback along the way.

A long, long time ago
I can still remember how that magic
Used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make the heavens dance
And maybe she'd be happy for a while
But all my travels made me shiver
With every failure I'd deliver
Monsters wait in hiding
Mighty wills colliding
I will not say how much I cried
When I saw her face upon its side
Something touched me deep inside
The day the magic died

So, bye-bye, Miss Equestrian Sky
Once a pony was too lonely and she bade us goodbye
Both lord and farmer looking off to the side
Singin', “Everything will one day pass by,
Everything will one day pass by”

Did you cast a spell of sparks
And do you have faith in cutie marks
If a Princess tells you so?
Now, do you believe in harmony
Can friendship save your destiny
And can you teach me how to be just me?
Well I know that sisters’ love is bright
Cause I saw them blazing in the night
They both took off their crowns
The castle came falling down
I was a brash and brazen wizard buck
With a mind like fire and a heart of pluck
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the magic died

I started singin', bye-bye, Miss Equestrian Sky
Oh, a pony left us lonely and we’re saying goodbye
An old earth pony with her grandfoals beside
Singing "Everypony passes on by,
Every pony will pass on by”

Now, no Princess wards us in her wings
And wolves will circle while fillies sing
And all this will come to be
That the heartless sing for the wedding scene
In a shape she stole from an orphaned queen
And a swarm that drains all it can see
Oh, and while a centaur ripped the ground
A seeded box with riddles round
A schoolgirl deft at turns
The whole world tossed and burned
And while Starlight built a wall of marks
A sestet chased them through the dark
And ponies cast aside their arcs
The day the magic died

They were singin', bye-bye, Miss Equestrian Sky
Every pony will be lonely, every friendship will die
The outcast vengeful all will take up the cry
Saying “Everypony turned a blind eye,
Everypony turned a blind eye”

Halter palter on the three tribes’ altar
Ice-winds whirl and the summit falter
Three monsters, a single blast
With a bell made for a ghast
The faithless cut to the heart at last
With the jester shorn of bluster learning fast
Now the frozen air torn with unrest
And ponies’ homes locked in distress
They all looked to their own
They reaped what they had sown
When the noble broke upon the field
The children all refused to yield
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the magic died?

We started singin', bye-bye, Miss Equestrian Sky
Drove her scooter to her tutor and her tutor did try
And weather ponies in the storm clouds up high
Singing “Every rainbow will learn to fly,
Every rainbow will learn to fly”

Oh, so there we were, three separate tribes
Two royal sisters at one divide
A thousand years to start again
So come on, stars be turning, stars take stock
Star Swirl counting down the clock
Cause shadows are King Sombra’s only friend
Oh, and as I watched her tear the page
I felt the voiding of an age
No pony in that well
Could break the crystal spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To send her sister on her flight
I saw Discord laughing with delight
The day the magic died

He was singin', bye-bye, Miss Equestrian Sky
Once a pony is too lonely there is only goodbye
The stars above me saw me stumble and lie,
Said “One thousand years will go by,
You will not see them go by”

I saw a white cat chasing mice
And I asked her for some good advice
But she just meowed and turned away
I went down to the broken stones
Where I knew the magic would be known
But as I watched all the magic fell away
And in the sky the griffons flew
The dragons roared and the breezies blew
But not a rainbow woken
The harmony was broken
And the pony that I tried to aid
Succumbed to the mistakes I made
And in the end the price we paid
The day the magic died

And I was singing, bye-bye, Miss Equestrian Sky
Drove a pony far too lonely and she bade us goodbye
The stars above me saw me look up and try
Sing “A thousand years too will go by,
A thousand years too will go by”
I was singing, bye-bye, Miss Equestrian Sky
Drove a pony far too lonely and she bade us goodbye
The stars above me saw me look up and try
Sing “A thousand years too will go by”

Comments

[Isseus]

Weird Aegle Yankovic. I like it!

[FanOfMostEverything]

Wonderful to see this in its completed form. Glad I could offer some help.

[zimmerwald1915]

It’s maybe most well-known to today’s audiences because of Weird Al’s Star Wars version

Really? Damn.

[Trick Question]

In lieu of an "encore" pic
derpicdn.net/img/2019/8/26/2128145/rendered.png

[TwilightMoon]

I remember a fic where Pinkie died of illness and Twilight sang a version of ' American Pie' to remember her

[iisaw]

Very moving.

[Reese]

Congratulations on getting that done. :)

[keybounce]

The original was a good bye/ love story to (a single one) one of the great legends of rock and roll, and discussed the major events and groups of history.

As I'm reading this, I'm trying to figure out who StarSwirl would be singing about.

and young Star Swirl sings it sometime after the end of The Crown of Night,

The problem is, this song is talking about everything from Canterlot wedding to Our Town. So if it is Starswirl, it has to be old Starswirl after his return, looking at history -- and then I'm wondering why we don't see more of his olden days.

It can't be young starswirl.
And if he's talking about someone having died, then who?

If it's Twilight's death, that's long after the end of the series. And it's not clear who else's death/life we could be remembering.

The only other possibility would be the end of G4 magic / start of the G5 no-magic time. But the likelyhood of Starswirl living that long is ... kinda low.

[Daedalus Aegle]

5589155
This is my version of Star Swirl, from my fic that is tagged in the blog. He is singing about Luna. And the references to episodes of the show are him delivering prophecies.

[keybounce]

Ahh. So I've got a story to read to understand this. Got it.

EDIT: 300K words in two stories ...