Wake Me Up Joel Dobbins Watching Like A Hawk

Back Story:

"I'd always been fascinated with Air Crash Investigations and similar shows and finding how they came to forensic conclusions based on all the evidence they had found. The disaster with most casualties was the Tenerife Airport Disaster where a plane collided during takeoff with another plane caused by miscommunication between the pilots and the air traffic control personnel. After recounting the story with a colleague, I had the idea driving home imagining a co-pilot surviving the crash and then ended up being caught up in allegations for mass manslaughter. Even though it wasn't their mistake, there was no surviving witnesses to say otherwise and the suspicion was mounting up against him. The anguish that this would make one feel as well as the feeling of guilt and being targeted by all the media for the blame would be overwhelming and so I wanted to capture this from a first person perspective. The lyrics to The Beatles' Maxwell's Silver Hammer was a big inspiration for this because of the overwhelmingly strong concepts and themes in the song."
- Joel Dobbins

Lyrics:

I love flying the night
Underneath every star above
Guess who I might meet
With such a push and a shove

No radar installed at the tower
The clouds hung in mid-air
The radio transmitter hardly worked
Another plane they were unaware

I was just a co-pilot
On a co-mission
A hundred counts for manslaughter
Don't send me to prison

Wake me up
From this awful nightmare
Wake me up
From this public affair
Wake me up
What more could I have done
Wake me up
Let me see the rising sun

The runway is long
Yet something seemed ever so nearer
A collision imminent
Could not have ever been clearer

Despite the screams and cries
Somehow some of us survived
It was like hellfire on Earth
Taking for all it was worth

I was just a co-pilot
On a co-mission
A hundred counts for manslaughter
Don't send me to prison

Wake me up
From this awful nightmare
Wake me up
From this public affair
Wake me up
What more could I have done
Wake me up
Let me see the rising sun
Wake me up

Wake me up
From this awful nightmare
Wake me up
From this public affair
Wake me up
What more could I have done
Wake me up
Let me see the rising sun