There And Back Again – Steve Macdonald

Time, time passes so long
When you’re far away
Time, time passes so long
When friends are far away…

Planes land, cars drive up
Trains pull through the station
Summer, Winter, Spring, and Autumn too;
Another weekend’s begun

And we’ll sing on through the night
And we’ll hold each other tight
Yes we’ll sing on through the night

Soft shoe tap dance, New Year’s toast
Ties and tails all around
All those who bring us here each year
Even Mad Hatters abound

And we’ll sing on through the night
And we’ll hold each other tight
Yes we’ll sing on through the night

What a year, oh, what a year!
All those many voices raised as one, together
What a year, oh, what a year!
To stand and join the song-

Bardic circles give us each a turn
Cat’s cradle, puzzle, buckyball
Yet Chaos abounds all over the world
It’s to our hearts the songs call

And we’ll sing on through the night
And we’ll hold each other tight
Yes we’ll sing on through the night

What a year, oh, what a year!
All those many voices raised as one, together
What a year, oh, what a year!
To stand and join the song-

Pegasus flies, SAM holds his pose
More Fame in the Hall
Contests, parodies, a golden Kazoo
New music enriches us all

And we’ll sing on through the night
And we’ll hold each other tight
Yes we’ll sing on through the night

What a year, oh, what a year!
All those many voices raised as one, together
What a year, oh, what a year!
To stand and join the song-

Planes landed, cars drove up
Trains pulled through on their way
Wherever you were, all over the world
The feeling was the same

And we sang on through the night
No noise limiter in sight
Yes we’ll sing on through the night
Emotions higher than a kite
Sing on
As One
All One
Sing on

Time, time passes so long
When friends are far away
Time, time passes so long
When you’re far away…

You can find an annotated version of these lyrics here.

The WorlDream was an incredible experience. In this one year, the community came together for a couple of hours at each convention to sing the same song- many people attended several conventions (and so appear on the final recording multiple times). At the first few of conventions, it was just a fun thing to do.

By FKO in April; it started to turn into something a lot more profound. There was this feeling of connection that started to grow; and that feeling just became exponentially wider and deeper with every subsequent convention.

I try to capture here some of the feelings and highlights from the WorlDream. It’s a very pale comparison.