Vocal cover of Johnny Cash arrangement. "My battery is low and it's getting dark." Uses Johnny Cash backing track from his album "American VI". This cover is dedicated to NASA's Opportunity team.
NASA's Opportunity Rover was one of the most successful and enduring interplanetary missions in history. Opportunity landed on Mars in early 2004 soon after its twin rover Spirit. Opportunity operated for almost 15 years, setting several records and making a number of key discoveries. Opportunity continued to overcome numerous obstacles on Mars and could not be held down by Mars' challenges, even when batteries became critically low and the Martian dust blanketed Opportunity's solar panels. Opportunity exceeded its life expectancy by 60 times and had traveled more than 28 miles (45 kilometers) by the time it reached its appropriate final resting spot on Mars - Perseverance Valley. Opportunity stopped communicating with Earth after a severe Mars-wide dust storm blanketed its location in June 2018. The final message from the Opportunity Rover can be translated as: "My battery is low and it's getting dark."
About the folk song: "Ain't No Grave" (also known as "Gonna Hold This Body Down") is a traditional American gospel song attributed to Claude Ely (1922-1978) of Virginia. Claude Ely, a songwriter and preacher from Virginia, describes composing the song while sick with tuberculosis in 1934 when he was twelve years old. His family prayed for his health, and in response he spontaneously performed this song. Originally recorded by Bozie Sturdivant in July 1942 (and released in 1943 as "Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down") in a slower, African American gospel style and in 1946 by Sister Rosetta Tharpe with barrelhouse piano; the song in Ely's version was recorded (and copyrighted) in 1953, even though he wrote it as early as 1935.
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