Two more apocalyptic/dystopian songs:
194. Rush, “Red Sector A” (1984):
195. Leslie Fish, “The Day It Fell Apart” (1989):
Tag Archives | Can’t Stop the Muzak
SciFi SongFest, Songs 190-193
Four songs about sex robots (whether literal or metaphorical):
190. Miracles, “Love Machine” (1975):
191. Prince, “Automatic” (1982):
192. Loverboy, “Lovin’ Every Minute of It” (1985):
193. Aqua, “Barbie World” (1997):
SciFi SongFest, Songs 188-189
Two mournful songs about space travel:
188. Rolling Stones, “2000 Light Years from Home” (1967):
189. Julia Ecklar, “Ballad of a Spaceman” (1983):
Middelboe Chronicles, Part 68: John Henry, the Steel Driving Man
Like Don Quixote against the windmills, John Henry, the Steel Driving Man (“Animated Tales of the World,” 2002) pits his strength against impersonal machinery and comes to grief – though in this case Henry has a more altruistic end than in most versions of the story, and he achieves that end.
This is another particularly beautiful animation.
And we’re now in the final stretch of the Middelboe Chronicles ….
SciFi SongFest, Songs 181-187
Six more songs about alien visitation, plus one song about a mistaken case of such:
181. Woody Guthrie (composer, 1950), Billy Bragg and Wilco, “My Flying Saucer” (1999):
182. Pink Floyd, “Let There Be More Light” (1968):
This song references the 11th century English rebel Hereward; A.E. Van Vogt’s novel War Against the Rull; the 1956 Mildenhall airbase UFO incident; and the Beatles:
Related (?):
Goethe’s dying words were also “more light!” – though he seems to have been asking only for the window to be opened.
183. Ramones, “Zero Zero UFO” (1989):
184. Porno for Pyros, “Pets” (1993):
185. Killers, “Spaceman” (2008):
186. Jimi Hendrix, “Third Stone From the Sun” (1967):
187. Joe Diffie, “Third Rock From the Sun” (1994):
As noted above, this one’s about a mistaken case of alien visitation. But it’s still sort of science fiction, because it’s about … causality!
Middelboe Chronicles, Part 67: Don Quixote
[T]oday we read the whole of Don Quixote with a bitter taste in the mouth, it is almost an ordeal, which would make us seem very strange and incomprehensible to the author and his contemporaries, – they read it with a clear conscience as the funniest of books, it made them nearly laugh themselves to death. — Nietzsche
Following up yesterday’s story of windmills (The Tree With the Golden Apples) with a rather more famous story on, inter alia, the same subject: Cervantes’ Don Quixote (“Animated Epics,” 2000).
The only version I could find online is split into three parts:
Or if you prefer a musical version, here’s a clip featuring the inimitable Richard Kiley (I love Peter O’Toole, but his Quixote doesn’t quite grab me):