THE BASINGSTOKE

(Words by Zander Nyrond, from an idea by Janet Waite. Tune: "Hotel California")

There's a stretch of the spacelanes
Where the ships never call,
Where there's only a few stars,
No planets at all.
So they built a free station
For refuelling and rest
And they named it the Basingstoke--
It was an ancient jest.

Came the day of the stardrive,
Of the faster than light,
So they closed down the stations,
Let them drift in the night.
But the message was garbled
And it never got through.
So the Basingstoke is still out there
Waiting just for you...

CHORUS	Welcome to the Basingstoke free station
Come and rest a spell, never mind the smell,
There's plenty of room on the Basingstoke free station
Any night or day, you will find a bay...

The hull is battered and broken.
There are leaks here and there.
It isn't that they can't plug the holes:
They just don't care.
The decor's pretty crazy
In this space oubliette,
And the starships that call there,
They're crazier yet.

There's a ship called the Christian
And the Mary Celeste.
The Reliant and the Scorpio
Came here for a rest.
And if you're looking for comfort
There's room for you too:
You can hear the beacons in the night
Calling out to you...

CHORUS	Welcome to the Basingstoke free station
Everybody knows that we never close.
We've all that you need on the Basingstoke free station
For a quick repair, you will find us there...

Drifters in the barrooms,
No place else to go,
Engineers and techie crews
Waiting down below.
And in the master's quarters
An empty wingback chair:
The orders come over the tannoy
But there still ain't no-one there--

And when you're all rested
And your ship is fit to fly,
They say "Au 'voir", "Auf wiedersehen",
They never say goodbye.
"See you soon," says the barman,
"It's a lesson you've got to learn.
You can always leave the Basingstoke
But you'll always return...."

(Fade on interminable guitar solos)