Guy Garvey has a gift for nuanced catch-phrasing that rivals Paul Simon’s. “Build a rocket boys” captures not only one generation’s exhortation to another but the older generation’s yearning for its touchstone, its symbol of simpler times—indeed when anyone could build a rocket. Rocket clubs were everywhere. This was a time when the word “rocket” evoked awe and wonder, visions of adventures on other planets, the daringness, indeed the hubris, of our quest to capture the stars—Bradbury’s R Is for Rocket is one example; The Rocketeer and October Sky are others.

A rocket symbolized the future—progress, hope, and unlimited vista. Today the notion is quaint. Even the rocket logo on the U. of Toledo’s football helmets seems faintly anachronistic. And the word itself has fallen on hard times—“Brewster Rockit: Space Guy” is sublimely zany, the funniest thing on the comics pages these days, but it also may have written an obituary for the mystery of the word.