Brass Goggles

Brass Goggles is the sixth track on Album One, written by Isabella Bunny Bennett. It is also the eleventh track on Music from SteamWorld Heist. Brass Goggles is one of the band's earliest and most well-known songs, as well as the second-most viewed video on the Steam Powered Giraffe YouTube channel. It is usually played as the final song in the band's sets (either as, or before, the encore song).

Background
Isabella Bennett began writing the song in 2007. Isabella Bennett, David Michael Bennett, and Jonathan Sprague were making pantomime music videos together, such as the videos for Scary World and Love World of Love. Isabella suggested doing “a robot pantomime thing” with the song Brass Goggles.

The song was originally about a robot attempting and failing to be human, and contained a verse about the robot trying to dance with a woman, but hurting her with his sharp metal hands. This verse was later removed. The robots in the song were initially written a lot creepier, but when the song was used for Steam Powered Giraffe, the lyrics describing things like "pumping lead through your veins" and "a heart so wet and cold it starts rusting" were kept in anyway for being good robot-related imagery.

Musical information
In the original release of Brass Goggles (2009), Upgrade spoke the introductory line. The SteamWorld Heist version features the game's development team, Image & Form, singing along during the chorus. Live performances in 2014 or later generally include a “tea break” for the band before the final bridge and chorus, with tea served by the Walter Workers.

Lyrics

 * Attune your ears to the grinding gears

Rabbit (throughout) Come with me I'll show you how to be a metal man When the gears are turning and the fires are burning When the world ticks around you, voices tocking all the time And you live for sleep you've never slept because you cannot sleep

Colonel Walter was shocked when he learned from the Nile Copper African elephants turning hostile So he built these wonderful automaton blokes And a very big steam powered giraffe what smokes

Now the war is passed and over We're left to sit and wonder What is life and what is real? And why do living things need feeling? (One, two, three)


 * Chorus:

La-Da-Da-Da-Da (x3) La-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da La-Da-Da-Da-Da (x2) La-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da

How'd you like to try pumping lead through your veins Or have a heart so wet and cold it starts rusting When the world ticks around you, voices tocking all the time You live for feelings you've never felt because you cannot feel

And what is this leaking affecting my eye? Does the oil that is dripping mean this is a cry? Will I ever be something with feelings to hide? Or am I just a boiler with nothing inside?

I want all today Don't want to hear you say You can't do this, you can't do that You're not a living thing with feeling (One, two, three)
 * (Chorus)



Trivia

 * Starting in 2015, GG The Giraffe began playing keyboard for Brass Goggles on the projector screen behind the band at live concerts.
 * Brass Goggles is named after the website/forum brassgoggles.co.uk, a prominent steampunk forum of the late 2000s.
 * In SPG lore, there is a character created in 2008 that has lead pumping through his veins as described in the song, but he has yet to make an appearance in canon.