The Alan Parsons Project – Some Other Time

General CommentIt seems to me that the song is just about looking into the night sky.

"In a matter of a moment
Lost till the end of time
It's the evening of another day
And the end of mine"

As we all should know, it takes a long time for light to travel across the universe. The stars we see may are not the stars as they are now. So the "moment lost til the end of time" is the "carbon copy" of the image the light reflects into the universe that exists for much longer than we can imagine.

It's just another evening of another day to the character in the song, which emphasizes the amazing concept of an image of an entire world existing and speeding throughout the universe long after that world is destroyed. "The end of mine" I think just means it's the end of the character's day, not that it's the end of human reign or whatever.

"Now the starlight which has found me
Lost for a million years
Tries to linger as it fills my eyes
Till it disappears"

Again, the starlight lost for a million years is just the length of time that it took the light to reach the character. The light tries to linger longer, but eventually it will die.

"Could it be that somebody else is
Looking into my mind"


Is it possible someone on another planet will look at the sky and see our solar system millions of years from now? Imagine the technology that person could have on that foreign planet. Perhaps one day it will be possible to take a picture of the sky with a digital camera, load it onto your computer, and use PhotoShop to zoom in so close that you can actually see activity on the planet that happened millions of years ago. Will other beings be able to "see into our minds" in this way?


"Like a mirror held before me
Large as the sky is wide
And the image is reflected
Back to the other side"

A telescope perhaps?



"Some other place"

This obviously suggests it cannot be where the character is. So I don't really think robots and world domination are an aspect of this song.

"Some other time"

This just enforces the suggestion that someone is seeing us either in the future or in the past (is it possible to find another planet, zoom in on it, and see someone a million years ago doing the same thing to us?).

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  @wydrah

General CommentThis song is about extraterrestrial intelligences watching humanity from the sky ("like a mirror held before me large as the sky is wide, and the image is reflected back to the other side"), and even being able read individuals thoughts ("could it be that somebody else is looking into my mind"). The chorus seems pretty direct to me ("some other place, somewhere, some other time").. i.e. another world.

It encapsulates the mystery and awe that UFOs inspire, and most interestingly it offers up an amazingly strange and wonderful concept (scifi as it may seem): an intelligence from elsewhere in the stars spying on us and even having an interest in our lives.

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  @Tetsuro999

General Commentbased on the theme of the album, i think the meaning of this song is that the era of humankind is over and it is being replaced by the era of the robot.
"It's the evening of another day
And the end of mine"

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  @Anomaly57

General CommentBasically the character in the song is admiring the universe as he sees it from the earth's night sky and he begins to question his own place in the universe.

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  @wydrah

General CommentThis is one of the best Project songs. I think that it is about a society prying into his thoughts. Lyrically, it might have been better on Eye in the Sky, but it's still great on I Robot, the best project album.

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  @inpraiseoffolly

General CommentIt seems to me that this song is about some person who is looking up at the night sky and contemplating a star that is fading out of existence or that may have gone supernova. I think the lyrics are saying that the star will be gone and that the viewer is only seeing the left over light from the star due to distance (even though the star is no longer physically present) and because of this it is making him wonder whether someone in the future could be looking at his own light so to speak, even though in that scenario he would no longer exist.

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  @erusty