Satellite Releases Gigs Lyrics Comments

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Author
Robyn Hitchcock
According to our records, Robyn has played this song 74 times, most recently at Kamera at Lloyd and Platt on October 24, 2025. He first performed it at Maxwell's (Late show) on September 22, 1989, 36 years and 1 month earlier.

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From Robyn on Patreon in 20205
This song was written around the time of an orbiting phase of a relationship. I was circulating around the world, seldom tethered to the surface that passed below me. Sometimes I pictured flying over a farm, where people were being grown in fertiliser bags. The more disconnected I became from the ground below me, the more vividly I pictured my lover flourishing thousands of feet below, on the People Farm. Sitting there, flying economy in the smoking section of a giant airliner, it often felt like I had antlers growing out of my forehead. Altitude plays funny tricks.

Songs have a mind of their own, of course, so in this one, I was also walking along a beach, looking at my distant loved one glinting up in the sky, occasionally visible as the sunlight blinked off their tiny module. Whether you're the one aloft or the one down below, the space between you becomes thick with frustration.

It was originally recorded in the summer of 1989 at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco, which was my emotional epicentre at the time. I was making a deliberately sparse record, on my own dime, to see how I sounded away from the increasingly slick sound that was generated between my band and the record company, A&M. This became the Eye album. It was great (and most convenient) having both a band and a record label - I could remember having neither and feeling in limbo. But sometimes limbo is the best place to be. I tend to seek it out naturally.

"Satellite" seemed more like a rock track than most of the songs on the sessions. So as a nod to the omnipresent snare drum currently reaching its zenith in late 1980s recordings, I overdubbed myself hitting a cardboard box more or less in time with the guitar and vocal. In my head, I was trying to approximate David Bowie trying to sound like John Lennon. Who would Lennon have been trying to aim for: Buddy Holly, perhaps?

I've always been fond of this song, if only because it's so short. Like rosé wine, people seldom think of ordering it, but everybody drinks it when it's there.

Lyrics

Every day the satellite
Seems to be the door of someone's reach
Every day the satellite
Seems a little further on the beach

Satellites and stags                       
I'm growing Betsy in a bag
And she don't mind
As long as things are round

Every day the satellite
Jerky little canister of gold             
Who's to be the satellite
With inches of whole Betsy growing cold

I'm into you so far
I'm out the other side
And orbiting is just a waste of time      

Next time I get into you
I swear to God I won't come out again
Swear to God I won't come out again

Satellites and stags
I'm growing Betsy in a bag                
And she don't mind
As long as things are round

Every day the satellite
Seems a little further out of reach