Music of the Future Past
Nonfiction – by Peter Jekel
If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in music.
—Albert Einstein
What actually is classic rock? It is a form of rock music that formed in the late nineteen-sixties, mainly in England and the United States. It is often also dubbed progressive rock and sometimes art rock. It grew out of the increasing popularity of psychedelic bands of the mid and late nineteen-sixties. Its focus, like psychedelic music, is the music itself, for listening rather than for dancing. In other words, the songs are an art form unto themselves. They are longer and reminiscent of jazz, folk, and even classical music. New technologies such as synthesizers are often used to good effect. Lyrics are symbolic and poetic.
The rise of punk music in the nineteen-eighties and gradual negative reception of many up-and-coming progressive bands by music critics and the music industry led to classic rock’s demise. The genre still survives in isolated pockets, and many progressive rock bands still record. Classic progressive rock can be found on some radio stations, but it has been largely replaced by pop, new country and rap.
The diversity of classic rock bands allowed for the development not only of many musical styles but also lyrical themes, including horror, fantasy and science fiction. Led Zeppelin and Blind Guardian took the fantasy route, drawing inspiration from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Others looked to science fiction, with several creating truly iconic songs or entire concept albums telling a speculative fiction story.
David Bowie
No musician is more strongly associated with science fiction than David Bowie. Born David Jones in 1947, he changed his name to differentiate himself from Davy Jones, lead singer of the popular created-for-television band The Monkees. His name was not the only change he made in his life—with each album, Bowie reinvented his music and created a new persona as well.
His first science fiction song, “Space Oddity,” was his first hit. It tells of a man who becomes a superstar on a mission to space. Something goes wrong and Major Tom, the lead character, dies in the lonely void. In his next album, The Man Who Sold the World, the music is far different from its predecessor, becoming more hard rock in style. One of the songs, “Saviour Machine,” has been described as something that could have been penned by Isaac Asimov, famous for writing about artificial intelligence. It is about a computer created to deal with the world’s issues. After a short time it becomes bored and contemplates relieving the tedium with war or a plague.
For his fifth album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Bowie created an alter ego, Ziggy Stardust, an androgynous bisexual alien rock star who is a messenger for extraterrestrials.
Diamond Dogs, Bowie’s eighth studio album, is described as a synthesis of George Orwell’s 1984 and Bowie’s own vision of a dystopian post-apocalyptic world. Bowie intended to write a stage play of Orwell’s book but, unable to obtain the rights, created the album instead.
Music was only part of Bowie’s science fiction legacy. In 1976, he was cast as an alien in Nicolas Roeg’s science fiction movie The Man Who Fell to Earth. His son Duncan directed the 2009 science fiction movie Moon, about a man wrapping up his solo three-year stint of employment on a lunar colony. Unable to contact Earth directly, the man communicates with the home planet through his intelligent computer, GERTY.
The Who
Pete Townsend, lead guitarist the English band The Who, wrote most of the band’s songs. Their famous concept album Pinball Wizard was probably the first true rock opera. They also almost created a science-fiction concept album. The bassist, the late John Entwistle, wrote the song “905” as the basis of an uncompleted concept album about a test-tube created person who is assigned a structured life; somehow, he is able to see his fate. The theme is very much like that of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The song appears on their 1978 album Who Are You.
The Byrds
The Byrds began their musical journey in Los Angeles in 1964, undergoing many lineup changes before disbanding in 1973. Their album Fifth Dimension is, according to its writer, Roger McGuinn, an attempt to explain Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. The song “Mr. Spaceman” is about a visit by an alien. “Space Odyssey” is about a lunar landing in 1996 in which a pyramid is discovered, not unlike 2001: A Space Odyssey, the classic book by Arthur C. Clarke and movie by Stanley Kubrick. “CTA 102” is about an actual location in space once hypothesized to be evidence of extraterrestrial life due to a powerful radio emission. Today we know it’s the location of a quasar. Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev thought the powerful, then-unidentified radio source was evidence of a Type II or even Type III extraterrestrial civilization. The Kardashev Scale, which he developed in 1964 to measure the technological advancement of a civilization, considers a Type I civilization to be a planetary civilization able to use all the energy beaming toward it from its parent star. Earth might reach that stage in one to two hundred years. A Type II civilization uses all the energy of its parent star by building a Dyson sphere, an artificial megastructure surrounding the star to capture all its energy. A Type III civilization is similar but controls the energy of not just one star but an entire galaxy.
Critics have claimed the Byrds’ lyrics are code for drug-induced visions, a possibility since the Byrds were one of the first psychedelic bands from California; psychedelic bands were often associated with nineteen-sixties drug culture. Whatever the inspiration, the songs have a longevity that few songs today will enjoy.
Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship
Jefferson Airplane, formed in 1965 as a San Francisco folk-rock band, developed into one of the headline acts of psychedelia and then evolved into Jefferson Starship. To demonstrate the change, guitarist and founding member Paul Kantner wrote the concept album Blows Against the Empire in 1970. It was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, the only rock album to receive such a nod. It tells a tale about hijacking a starship to find a new home. The lyrics have a strong satiric undertone: the world the hijackers are escaping is run by the oppressive regime of Uncle Samuel.
Pink Floyd
British bands were also exploring science fiction themes in the nineteen-sixties while retaining their psychedelic sound. One such band is Pink Floyd. Some of their earliest music has strong science fiction themes; later albums turned to political satire. The early science fiction-themed songs include “Let There Be More Light,” first recorded in 1968. It describes the landing of a spacecraft near Royal Air Force Base Mildenhall. The song could be a premonition of the story of an unidentified flying object landing in Rendlesham Forest near Mildenhall in 1980, one of a number of UFO stories that remain hard to explain today. Mildenhall is often dubbed Great Britain’s Roswell. Other songs from this early era include “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” and “Cirrus Minor.” Another is “Two Suns in the Sunset,” describing the last day of Earth as it is being leveled by a nuclear holocaust.
Blue Oyster Cult
Blue Oyster Cult, which came onto the music scene as Soft White Underbelly in 1967, has been referred to as America’s answer to Black Sabbath. Michael Moorcock contributed lyrics for many Blue Oyster Cult songs, essentially musical retellings of some of his fantasy tales. Other songs are related to horror fiction, especially vampires, although they have some science fiction leanings. The song “E.T.I.” on Blue Oyster Cult’s first true hit album, Agents of Fortune, released in 1976, is about the Men in Black, who are part of UFO folklore, appearing often at alleged UFO crash sites or observations. Part of the myth of the Men in Black is that they are secret government agents or even aliens whose role is to threaten or kill UFO witnesses to keep them quiet. Imaginos, released in 1988, is Blue Oyster Cult’s eleventh studio album and is both a concept album and rock opera about an alien conspiracy brought to fruition by Imaginos, an agent of evil. The storyline draws heavily from H. P. Lovecraft.
Black Sabbath
British heavy metal band Black Sabbath formed in 1968 in Birmingham, England. Many of their lyrics are based on the horror and fantasy genres; in fact, the band’s original name Earth was changed to Black Sabbath because their first studio album, Black Sabbath, was recorded across from a movie theatre showing Boris Karloff's Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath also wrote songs with a science-fiction theme, including “Iron Man,” which has been interpreted a musical retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. The song’s writer, bassist Geezer Butler, however, has stated it’s about a man who travels to the future only to see the apocalypse. During his return to the present he turns into an iron man after passing through a powerful magnetic field. His warning of the future apocalypse goes unheeded, and he decides to exact his revenge on the world. The song appears on Black Sabbath’s best-selling second studio album, Paranoid. Also on the album are “Planet Caravan,” about travelling through the universe, and “Electric Funeral,” about the aftermath of a nuclear war. Their third album, Masters of Reality, contains the protest piece “Into the Void,” about a group of individuals who seek to escape Earth to found a new world utopia. “End of the Beginning,” appearing on their last album, 13, is about technology taking over the world, with a particular emphasis on cloning. Another interesting song from the album is “Zeitgeist,” an eerie melodic description of a one-way flight into the universe. Although it may not have been the intention, the song is similar to Poul Anderson’s story “Tau Zero,” about a steadily accelerating ship doomed to travel to the end of the universe.
Rush
Canadian progressive rock band Rush is famous not only for their longevity, having been around for well over forty years, but also for the fact that, unlike other successful bands, they have never undergone personnel change other than when the original drummer was replaced for health reasons after the release of the first album. The first side of their breakthrough and fourth album, 2112, is the musical story of a future society controlled by a religious elite. The hero discovers what turns out to be a guitar, which he finds makes beautiful music. He brings it to the religious elite only to be vehemently rebuffed. The tale, though science fiction, takes its theme from Ayn Rand’s libertarian novel Atlas Shrugged. On their album Farewell to Kings is a song, “Cygnus X-1,” about a mission to a black hole; Cygnus X-1 is an X-ray source in the constellation Cygnus in our galaxy and is thought to be the signature of a black hole. In their subsequent album, Hemispheres, the story continues in “Cygnus X-1, Book II” as the hero takes his spaceship directly into the black hole.
A more recent album is their Clockwork Angels, a concept album about the travels of a hero through a steampunk inspired world. The tale even was novelized by science fiction writer, Kevin Anderson and the band’s great late lyricist, drummer, Neil Peart.
Ten Years After
Ten Years After, an early band that drew heavily from southern blues, wrote a couple of science fiction songs. Perhaps the best-known is “Year 3000 Blues,” about a man condemned to die as a means of population control. He is able to escape only to be recaptured. A similar theme appears in William Nolan and George Johnson’s novel Logan’s Run (later a movie by Michael Anderson), in which people live in a relative utopia with the only drawback being that they have to report to die at the age of thirty. Another song, “Here They Come,” is a story about an alien invasion.
Yes
Jon Anderson, former singer of the progressive rock band Yes, wrote lyrics for a number of Yes songs, including Starship Trooper, which on the surface sounds like science fiction. As the song progresses, the lyrics appear to lose focus and veer away from the original theme However, as a solo artist, Anderson wrote the science fiction concept album Olias of Sunhillow, depicting the alien world of Sunhillow, home to four tribes that represent different aspects of musical consciousness. The world is threatened by a volcano. This concept may sound far fetched, but a super volcano could actually come close to annihilating the human race. Around 70,000 to 75,000 years ago, the Toba super-eruption in Sumatra, Indonesia, caused a global cooling event that lasted around 1,000 years. Evidence indicates the super-eruption caused a bottleneck in the world’s human population, estimated to be around 50,000 to 100,000 beforehand and afterward between 3,000 and 10,000. Anderson has said he’s still working on a sequel to the highly successful album.
Hawkwind
Hawkwind, another British psychedelic band, formed in 1969. The unusual name has several explanations, none confirmed by bandmembers. Hawkwind is so ingrained in science fiction culture that it is probably the only band whose members became characters in a science fiction novel, Michael Moorcock’s Time of the Hawklords. The storyline is simple enough—the bandmembers save the world.
The band is still in existence, with founding member David Brock still at the helm. They have recorded around 25 albums, many with a space theme. Several tracks are inspired by best-selling science fiction books, including Lord of Light, Jack of Shadows, and Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny; Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse; and High Rise by J. G. Ballard. Many are based on Michael Moorcock stories, and others are taken from a collection of poems by Robert Calvert, Hawkwind’s lead singer from 1976 to 1978. Some of his poems include “The Awakening,” “The Spirit of the Age” and “10 Seconds of Forever.” Although a few lyrical gems are associated with Hawkwind, most of the songs have simplistic lyrics not up to the level of good science fiction writing.
Queen
Brian May, scientist and lead guitarist of the progressive and innovative rock band Queen, has written several science-themed songs. May, who obtained a doctorate in astrophysics in 2008, wrote for Queen a song entitled “39” that at first appears to be related to World War II; however, on closer examination it is about a starship wandering the universe only to come home to a much-changed Earth due to the time dilation caused by speeds approaching that of light. Although not science fiction but with a strong space theme, May’s recent “New Horizons” celebrates the spacecraft launched by NASA in 2006 to explore the outer reaches of the solar system. Not only did the craft reveal new data about Pluto, the largest object in the Kuiper Belt, but it recently encountered the snowman-shaped object Ultima Thule, also in the Kuiper Belt, the most distant extraplanetary object explored by a human spacecraft.
10cc
The pop band 10cc wrote “Old Mister Time” about a lonely eccentric who is tormented by the locals. One day he disappears; a search of his rundown home reveals he’s built a time machine to escape his tormentors into a new world.
Chris de Burgh, Little River Band, Electric Light Orchestra
“A Spaceman Came Travelling” by Chris de Burgh, “Orbit Zero,” by Little River Band, and “Mission” by Electric Light Orchestra are about not an alien invasion but a benevolent alien race that travels to Earth to observe.
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden, a band associated with the new wave of British heavy metal, appeared in 1975. Many of their science fiction-oriented songs are based on classics of science fiction literature. “To Tame the Land“ is essentially a musical version of Frank Herbert’s great science fiction novel Dune. The band sought permission to call the track Dune, but Herbert wouldn’t allow it as he disliked heavy metal music. They also penned “Brave New World” about the classic novel of the same name by Aldous Huxley. “New Frontier” is a retelling of Frankenstein. “When Two Worlds Collide” is based on When Worlds Collide by Philip Wylie, a story about the discovery of a pair of rogue planets on a collision course with Earth. “When the Wild Wind Blows” is based on the Raymond Briggs novel of the same name about a time after nuclear annihilation.
Iron Maiden looked to science fiction movies for inspiration as well. “Out of the Silent Planet” is a tribute to the classic 1956 movie Forbidden Planet. “Caught Somewhere in Time” takes its inspiration from an excellent science fiction movie entitled Time After Time. The song, like the movie, is about Jack the Ripper, who is able, through the use of the time machine designed by H. G. Wells, to travel to the present day to wreak havoc.
The Alan Parsons Project
The Alan Parsons Project was created by recording engineer and musician Alan Parsons, whose engineering accomplishments include recording Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon as well as The Beatles’ Abbey Road and Let It Be. He recorded with his own band, The Alan Parsons Project, between 1975 and 1990. His album I, Robot is a retelling of the Isaac Asimov story. Asimov greeted the project with enthusiasm, unlike Frank Herbert’s reception of Iron Maiden.
Parsons also worked as a solo artist and wrote the album The Time Machine in 1999. It contains a number of disconnected songs each dealing with some aspect of time. “Temporalia” features narration on the idea that the universe itself is a time machine. “Press Rewind” reflects on what might be possible if one could reverse time. “Out of the Blue” is about a time traveler from the future. Many, like “Ignorance of Bliss” and “The Cry of the Wild,” speak of a utopian future,
Ayreon
Ayreon isn’t a band but rather a musical project that began in 1995. The developer is Dutch songwriter and musician Arjen Anthony Lucassen. He combines progressive rock and heavy metal with intimations of folk and classical music, using rock singers from different bands from around the world. The first album was The Final Experiment. The story takes place in the year 2084, when our planet is being destroyed on a number of fronts. Scientists, however, have found a way to communicate with people in the past to warn them of their future if they do not change their ways.
Actual Fantasy is a collection of fantasy- and science fiction-themed songs. “Back on Earth” is about a boy who lives on a space station on which people have lost the ability to show emotion. The boy overhears the elders talking about their days back on Earth. Confused, the boy looks up old Earth on his computer and finds images of mountains and flowers and other beautiful things. He learns the world was destroyed by war, and to survive people moved onto the space station. When the boy sees people with feelings, he realizes they would have preferred to die with their home planet rather than live soullessly on the sterile space station.
Another concept album, Dawn of Man, has complicated, difficult-to-comprehend lyrics, but Lucassen has indicated it’s based on 2001: A Space Odyssey.
His next concept album was Into the Electric Castle, which centers around eight characters from different places and times who find themselves in a strange place. A mysterious, omnipresent voice guides them to reach the Electric Castle in order to survive.
The next two concept albums are sequels to The Final Experiment. In Dream Sequencer, life on Earth has been wiped out, and humans now live on Mars. Without support from the home world, the colony dwindles to a single person, not a true colonizer but someone born on Mars. To experience the Earth he never knew, he uses a machine called a Dream Sequencer that was designed to prevent boredom in the Mars colony by allowing users to travel in time to their early childhoods and even to earlier incarnations.
In the sequel album, Flight of the Migrator, the last Martian colonist uses the Dream Sequencer to time travel even further back to a time before the Big Bang (if it can be called time, since time started with the Big Bang), when there was nothing but chaos. He sees the creation of the first soul, known as the Universal Migrator.
Dream Theatre
Progressive rock band Dream Theatre released a science fiction concept album called The Astonishing in 2016. The story takes place in the year 2285 in the northeastern United States, which has become a dystopia ruled by the Great Northern Empire of the Americas. Entertainment is electronic noise from noise machines. Its hero, Gabriel, plans with a band of rebels to challenge the oppressors.
Many who read speculative fiction may not realize how much science fiction, fantasy, and horror permeate popular music. Over the years many bands have used synthesizers to create a “science fiction” sound, while others have written songs telling science fiction tales, some inspired by published stories, novels and movies and others creating brand new stories. Interestingly enough, these tales told to music are less likely to be forgotten. Who can forget the songs they grew up with in high school or college? Research also shows that in dementia patients, musical memory, including lyrics, is the last higher cognitive function to be lost. Told to the beat of music, these stories will not only be remembered but live into the future, perhaps the very futures they describe.