In the Year 2525, hope man will survive

[luisam]

Don't you just hate getting a song stuck in your head?  Well I do and recently for some reason the song In the Year 2525 got stuck in my head.  I was listening some song hits from 1969 and this one really left an impact because the lyrics seemed to really touch on some very futuristic themes that weren't mainstream in 1969 (i.e. rise of robotics, In vitro fertilisation and global warming). The overriding theme, of a world doomed by its passive acquiescence to and overdependence on its own overdone technologies, struck a resonant chord in millions of people around the world in the late 1960s. It is a warning of the dangers of technology, portraying a future in which the human race is destroyed by its own technological and medical innovations.

 

In the Year 2525 is a 1969 "one hit wonder" of the duo of Zager and Evans. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks commencing July 12, 1969, peaked at number one in the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in August and September that year and all around the world. Certainly it kept CCR's Green River out of the number one spot that summer. It was No. 1 on July 20, 1969, in the United States, the date of the first manned moon landing, by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. It continued to top the charts while the Woodstock Music Festival was going on. It was nominated for a special Hugo Award that same year. The Hugo Awards are a set of awards given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. By the way, this is the only U.S. #1 sci-fi song.

 

It sold over four million copies by 1970; including singles sales, album usage and compilation inclusions by now it totals over 10 million units worldwide.

 

I guess Denny Zager is not family of producer Michael Zager. In 1978, the Michael Zager Band had a huge disco hit anthem with "Let's All Chant".

 

This bleak futuristic tale is a very unusual song, but 1969 was a very unusual year, with hippie anthems like "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" going to #1 along with bubblegum songs like "Sugar, Sugar." The Beatles, Elvis Presley and The Temptations all had classic #1s, but "In the Year 2525" stayed at #1 for six weeks, which was longer than any other song that year and earned it the distinction of #1 record of the year 1969.

 

The song was written and composed by Rick Evans in 1964, who dashed it out in 30 minutes. The song had been collecting dust in his dresser drawer until 1969 when he decided to try it out. The song was recorded primarily in one take in 1968, at a studio in a cow pasture in Odessa, Texas, with the participation of members of the Odessa Symphony in the recording.

 

Originally it was released on a small regional record label in 1968. After radio stations in Lincoln and Omaha turned the song into a regional "break-out" hit record, RCA Records signed the duo and rereleased the song nationwide.

Denny Zager clearly wasn't a big fan of the song "I didn't go nutty over the song" Zager confessed to Fred Bronson from Billboard. "It really wasn't the style I wanted to do." 

 

Obviously Zager wasn't good at predicting the future because this was their only hit and the group pretty much slide off into obscurity; Zager and Evans disbanded in 1971. As a consequence, rather than being a rock star, Denny Zager makes custom guitars nowadays.

 

With the advent of YouTube it's really interesting to see creative videographers putting together music videos with this song. If you're not familiar with the song, here's a link so give it a listen. 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the lyrics for the navel gazing of IN THE YEAR 2525 (Zager & Evans, 1969)

 

In the year 2525,

If man is still alive,

If woman can survive,

They may find…

 

In the year 3535

Ain't gonna need to tell the truth,

Tell no lies.

Everything you think, do, and say

Is in the pill you took today.

 

In the year 4545

Ain't gonna need your teeth,

Won't need your eyes.

You won't find a thing to chew,

Nobody's gonna look at you.

 

In the year 5555

Your arms are hanging limp at your side,

You legs got nothing to do,

Some machine's doing that for you.

 

In the year 6565

Ain't gonna need no husband,

Won't need no wife.

You'll pick your sons, pick your daughters too

From the bottom of a long glass tube.

Whoa-oh-oh.

 

In the year 7510

If God's a-coming

He ought to make it by then.

Maybe he'll look around himself and say,

"Guess it's time for the Judgement Day."

 

In the year 8510

God is gonna shake his mighty head.

He'll either say, "I'm pleased where man has been"

Or tear it down and start again.

Whoa-oh-oh

 

In the year 9595

I'm kinda wondering

If man is gonna be alive;

He's taken everything this old Earth can give

And he ain't put back nothing.

 

Now it's been ten thousand years,

Man has cried a billion tears

For what he never knew.

Now man's reign is through.

But throught eternal night,

The twinkling of starlight,

So very far away,

Maybe it's only yesterday...

 

In the year 2525 (etc...)

 

Listening it to it again the other day, I began to wonder if we could yet assess how accurate Zager & Evans' predictions of the future were...

 

Well, for a start the song begins with a bit of a cop-out. Although it is called 'In The Year 2525', there isn't actually a description of what will be going on then. Just presuming humanity might survive. The first assertion, of mood-controlling drugs of the future, is actually set 1010 years later, in the year 3535.

 

Then it is quite difficult to interpret the prediction for the year 4545. To be honest, if you wander around London not dressed as anything special you can get the impression that nobody ever looks at you already. The fact that you don't need teeth or eyes in 4545 could be quite exciting though - it might mean that all you are going to be eating is mushy space food delivered in tubes, and that everybody lives in a sophisticated virtual hyper-reality.

 

Continuing the lecture, it's not a very clear functional specifications what 'some machine is doing that for you' in the year 5555.

 

Now, just let's hang on a second reaching year 6565. They just told us that by 4545 we are going to have no teeth or eyes, and that by 5555 we'll have no arms or legs. So how the hell are we supposed to be picking this offspring from the 'long black tube' eh? Telekinesis? Or is the 'some machine' going to do that for us? On the other hand, it's ironic when they say that "in 6565, you won't need a husband or a wife, because you'll pick your son and daughter from a long black tube", that this is ALREADY true in a sense. The first test tube baby was born in 1978.

 

After 7510 they are getting kind of cosmologists or mystics, too esoteric for my taste. Incidentally, 'a billion tears' seems a terribly conservative estimate of how much man might cry in 10,000 years. One thing is for sure though - it seems their record company, RCA, didn't predict the 8-track stereo cassette cartridge going out of fashion so soon!

 

I feel a good point to mention a controversial comment I’ve read about this song which I neither agree, nor disagree; it says that the lyrics of In the Year 2525 sounds as the first text on existentialism written by two stoned college students.

[funkyy]

I remember listening to this song (on vinyl) way back...it was my older cousin who was playing it on the "radiogram" (bet you don't remember those!!!) and like you say it was one of those songs that stuck with you. It did seem different from all the other stuff that was coming out at that time maybe that helped it to be successful more than the lyrics did. Nice memories of days gone by.

[luisam]

10 hours ago, funkyy said:

.it was my older cousin who was playing it on the "radiogram" (bet you don't remember those!!!)

 

Of course I remember "radiograms" but I didn't know this sylish piece of furniture was called so in English. Actually, proper translation to Spanish is "radiogramófono" but I've never used this term nor heard it denominated so; used to call it "radio-tocadicos".

[funkyy]

For the uninitiated (or the "younger than you guys" members) the radiogram was a long cabinet type piece of furniture on four legs. It had a close-able lid (like a coffin!!), and on the left side was the turntable, on the right was the storage space for your LP's and singles and the dial for the radio. If I remember correctly the display screen showing the tuner settings for the radio was on the front of the radiogram. I loved visiting my grandmother's house 'cos we only had my dad's reel to reel tape recorder at home, so when I went to my gran's I used to dig out and play all the records (Elvis, Jim Reeves LP's and loads of singles like The Kinks, The Beatles, The Animals etc etc). Happy days never to return...but never forgotten.