Let's see if Blogger eats my post again.

I am obsessed with Muse's new album Black Holes and Revelations, particularly the song "Starlight."

Muse reminds me of a strange cross between Radiohead and Queen. Thom Yorke meets Freddy Mercury. Muse's front man captures Yorke's angst ridden fever-pitch, but the epic dynamics of the instrumentation recall Queen at its campiest. Some tracks make me think immediately of Queen's rendition of the Flash Gordon soundtrack, with Ming the Merciless glaring down at me.

But "Starlight"—as cheesy and pop-commercial as it is—wonderfully evokes the existential torment of unrequited love. Here I am in a spaceship, chasing the evanescent light left behind by a woman who is forever beyond my reach. Who says astrophysics and romance don't mix?

And the final "I just wanted to hold…" is kind of haunting, an unfinished thought perhaps exstinguished by anoxia, as the on-board oxygen supply runs out. And yet somehow I don't find this song depressing at all.

I was driving down the freeway feeling like all-out crap, and then I dialed up "Starlight" on my iPod and sang along, all but shouting the lyrics, and I felt a lot better.

So what if I die all alone in the midst of the interstellar vacuum, trillions of miles away from anyone who ever cared about me, never catching up with the brilliant, beautiful woman of my dreams? I suspect it won't ever happen anyway, at least I learn to travel faster than light.