YOU ARE HERE: zharth.net / Zharth's Music Log / Week 112 (Close Encounters)
(Originally finalized on December 2, 2024)
Preface: Ever since I caught Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County (a.k.a. The McPherson Tape) on TV growing up in the '90s - a found footage-style pseudo-documentary depicting a family's frightening encounter with extraterrestrial visitors on Thanksgiving night - I've felt that mid-to-late fall is a great time to indulge in alien abduction-themed entertainment, especially as a not-too-jarring pivot from the more general horror-themed atmosphere of Halloween. So this week we're going to explore songs that address the subject of encountering intelligent life originating from beyond our planet, as a spiritual successor to my Extraterrestrial Voyage theme.
Monday: Pink Floyd - Is There Anybody Out There? [The Wall, 1979]
Comments: Doing this theme so late into this music log (we're over a hundred weeks and counting!) is going to affect my song selection somewhat. For alien contact, I would have preferred the song Let There Be More Light from Pink Floyd's second album, A Saucerful of Secrets, which bridged the gap between their initial psychedelic period with Syd Barrett at the helm, and the experimental period that preceded their most popular output. But I used that song for my Festival of Light theme. Luckily, we also have this eerie number from the phenomenal rock opera The Wall, which could be interpreted as an open question posed to the vast expanses of space.
Tuesday: The Jimi Hendrix Experience - EXP / Up From The Skies [Axis: Bold As Love, 1967]
Comments: Not having the radio hits of either its predecessor or its successor, Axis: Bold As Love is the middle child of The Jimi Hendrix Experience's three studio albums - but that doesn't mean it's not good. Opening the album, EXP directly broaches the subject of flying saucers (or, uh, UFOs), which primes the listener to interpret the next song, Up From The Skies - a seemingly detached observation of human affairs - as being from the perspective of an alien visitor (one that may have passed by this way as far back as the last Ice Age).
Wednesday: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Luna [Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, 1976]
Comments: I'm not going to say this is one of my favorite Tom Petty songs - and aside from a couple of standout exceptions, I don't think the Heartbreakers had really settled into themselves yet on their debut album. But this song is notable in that its lyrics seem to be describing an alien encounter. There is, of course, always room for listener interpretation - take, for example, Day of the Eagle by Robin Trower (which I shared on my Animals theme). I swear, if you read the lyrics closely, there are details that could be describing a typical abduction experience.
Thursday: The Byrds - Mr. Spaceman [Fifth Dimension, 1966]
Comments: Few songs I've surveyed on the subject of alien encounters are quite as explicit as this one. Perhaps its notably light-hearted tone is not unrelated to that fact. While not all encounters are described as frightening, there is generally an air of not just disbelief, but ridicule levied at anyone reporting such incredulous experiences. So genuine believers tend to be more guarded about the details. Consider the air of mystery in the song Hypnotized by Bob Welch's Fleetwood Mac (which I shared during Shocktober) - another song that would have been perfectly well-suited to this theme.
Friday: Billy Thorpe - Children of the Sun [Children of the Sun, 1979]
Comments: Though born in England, Billy Thorpe moved with his parents to Australia and began performing at the age of 10. After establishing a successful music career, he would eventually relocate to the United States. No stranger to migration, it's not surprising, then, that this would be the subject (after a fashion) of his sci-fi mini-rock opera that opens with the title track, Children of the Sun. The song describes celestial visitors arriving on Earth to usher in a new age of civilization, as mankind is ferried across the infinite expanses of space.
Saturday: Foreigner - Starrider [Foreigner, 1977]
Comments: If there's one song from my Extraterrestrial Voyage theme that I feel is better suited to this week's theme, it's Here They Come by Ten Years After. So as a substitution, I'm including a song (an over-looked gem from Foreigner's debut album) on this theme that I would rather have included on that theme, in order to balance the scales. Though, to be fair, it's not completely out of place this week, especially following the sci-fi imaginings of our last song.
Sunday: Roy Buchanan - You're Not Alone [You're Not Alone, 1978]
Comments: As if in answer to the question that was posed at the start of this week, the music of the spheres echoes back across the seemingly empty vacuum of space, in the form of this eerie instrumental (itself a title track), sounding like something out of Pink Floyd's oeuvre, but performed by virtuoso (yet often overlooked) guitarist Roy Buchanan.
Honorable Mention: Steve Miller Band - Serenade (From The Stars) [Fly Like An Eagle, 1976]
Comments: Speaking of the music of the spheres! Aside from its (full) title, and a line about being "lost in space", the meaning of this song isn't super clear. And, it probably fits in better with our Extraterrestrial Voyage. But it's a great song - short, but sweet. One of my favorite Steve Miller Band songs. So I like to include it in my collection of songs about space.