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Final Countdown

This second verse of Europe's old poodle rock anthem The Final Countdown started to puzzle me:

We're headin' for Venus (Venus)

And still we stand tall

'Cause maybe they've seen us

And welcome us all, yeah

With so many light years to go

And things to be found (to be found)

I'm sure that we all miss her so

It makes very little sense to me, still I have heard it so many times and not reacted until now. Let's pick it apart:

We're headin' for Venus (Venus)

But why? What is there to see or do there. A notoriously hostile atmosphere consisting of very hot carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid does not sound very tempting at all.

And still we stand tall

Yeah whatever.

'Cause maybe they've seen us

This is probably the reason why Joey Tempest picked Venus. For the sake of rhyme.

And welcome us all, yeah

Yeah whatever.

With so many light years to go

Now this is the really tricky line. I see two possibilities:

1. They are fictively starting out from a nearby solar system but for some reason chose Venus over both Earth and Mars.

2. They did a slight miscalculation when measuring the distance between our planet and Venus, a distance most conveniently measured in light minutes.

I find the latter most believable.

And things to be found (to be found)

I'm sure that we all miss her so

Yeah whatever. x2

Just needed to get this out of my system.