Two songs about hungry monsters from outer space:
273. Sheb Wooley, “Purple People Eater” (1958):
274. Blondie, “Rapture” (1980):
Or, Debbie Harry sneaks rap onto MTV:
And don’t miss this mash-up of “Rapture” with the Doors’ 1971 “Riders on the Storm”:
Another version:
Another two-parter:
271. Police, “Synchronicity I” (1983):
272. Police, “Synchronicity II” (1983):
Could anything look more 80s than this?
Two songs riffing on a line from Walt Whitman by way of Ray Bradbury. Here’s a two-minute summary of the Twilight Zone episode that’s based on the Bradbury story (spoilers, obviously):
As you’ll see (or hear), the songs don’t really have anything to do with the story (although one of them does feature an android):
269. Irene Cara and the cast of Fame, “I Sing the Body Electric” (1980):
270. Rush, “Body Electric” (1984):
Two songs about particle physics:
267. They Might Be Giants, “Particle Man” (1990):
268. Man or Astro-Man?, “Antimatter Man” (2013):
In this extra-long two-parter, a spaceship travels through a black hole and meets the spirits of Apollo and Dionysus. (The fact that the song calls for a balance of the two spirits, rather than a subordination of the latter to the former, shows that even at this early date Neil Peart’s mind was not completely in captivity to Rand.)
The spaceship’s name, Rocinante, is derived from that of Don Quixote’s horse; both would later serve as inspiration for the name of the quixotic protagonists’ spaceship in The Expanse:
265. Rush, “Cygnus X-1, Book I: The Voyage” (1977):
266. Rush, “Cygnus X-1, Book II: Hemispheres” (1978):
Left and right hemispheres of the brain, get it?
Of course this doesn’t get either the mythology (Dionysus isn’t the god of love) or the neurophysiology quite right, but whatever.
Some online versions of “Hemispheres” have one audio track missing, but this one seems ok:
Hemispheres was one of the first rock albums I ever bought (because I’d heard it had something to do with Nietzsche and Ayn Rand). (The very first was Billy Joel’s Glass Houses.) (I’m not counting David Matthews’ Dune as a rock album.)
Two songs that share a title, plus a third song whose title is not unakin. Whether either of the first two songs is inspired by the comic book character of the same name is unclear.
262. Kinks, “Plastic Man” (1969):
263. Katrina and the Waves, “Plastic Man” (1984):
264. Kate Bush, “Rubberband Girl” (1993):
Another version: