Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Jeff Wayne's Musical War of the Worlds


Can't believe I discovered this in its entirely on YouTube!!!! Incredible....

This has long been an absolute favorite of mine, though tonight is the first time I've seen the accompanying stage show. I had only heard it previously.... once on the radio and then I sought out the CD which I listened to until it imploded!

I'll never forget the first time I heard it... quite by accident. It was Halloween night sometime in probably the early 80s (maybe late 70s?). My friend and I had just left a party and he was dropping me off at my house. We were randomly changing the station (in those days it was done with a knob, no electronics) and suddenly we heard this amazing sound. It immediately transfixed us both... we just looked at each other with our jaws hanging open. We had no idea what it was, and we found it just before arriving at my driveway, but there was no way we were going to shut it off... it was like nothing we had ever heard before. So we kept on going and drove all around the city and out into the countryside and listened to the entire thing... we had fortunately caught it from right near the beginning.

Rediscovering it tonight after all my recent delving into drama and story etc made me realize just how dramatic this production is... something I had taken for granted before. But no spoilers....

At least check out the beginning of it.... I'd venture to say if you're anything like me you'll have to watch it all.

Featuring Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues (and including the song Forever Autumn, which you may have heard before) and narrated by Richard Burton, looking *uncannily* young and suspiciously robotic in his floating head appearance....

8 comments:

Lady Euphoria Deathwatch said...

Hi Darkmatter,

I can't thank you enough. I love this on so many levels. And I'm getting to watch it all while at my daughter's house instead of piece meal on my dial up. I am watching it as I type.

I had given up hope.

'Forever Autumn' is one of my favorite songs and has been for a long time.

I thank you from the bottom of my dark little heart.

Sincerely, Euphoria

Darkmatters said...

I'm so glad to hear it!!!

I had actually thought about you when I posted this, I was starting to feel bad for posting so many videos when I know you (and by extension other readers of my blog) have such a hard time viewing them on dialup connections.

I had forgotten you said you were visiting your daughter, with the high-speed connect!! Great news!

Lady Euphoria Deathwatch said...

Hi Dark,

You might be interested to know that my late ex-mother-in-law lived through the original War of the Worlds on the radio. They lived in Jersey City at the time.

She was about thirteen and home with her older brother as a sitter while her parents were out at a business dinner that night. They listened to the radio in the kitchen as a treat before it was time for bed.

They hid behind the coal stove in terror all night, thinking that their parents were dead, until morning when their parents could finally get home to them.

Euphoria

Anonymous said...

Hey Mikey,
On our last holiday road trip the wifey introduced me to what is now my favorite (and only one that I'll listen to) podcast called Radio Lab:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/03/07

And one of the first shows we listened to was on anniversary of the War of the Worlds broadcast (link above). I think you'll really dig it!
if you listen to more of them, I highly recommend you check out the one on "the language of music" a topic that's very analogous to animation..

Anonymous said...

oops, i mean musical language...

UbaTuber said...

Coooool! I love it, especially the floating Burton head :)

Emily said...

Oh that's awesome! Alot of fun - I always loved the whole War of the Worlds story - the plot, and the circumstances around it's first airing - and this is a great narrator reference, thanks for posting it!

bRYEnd_of_the_schtick said...

(^ HEY! I have this on 8TRACK!
(^ seriously 1 I had NO idea there was images to go with it!
THANKS!

now go find Consequences or singring and the glass guitar!
(^ yummy.

yeash even some animation for the small faces ogden's nutgong flake album side two would be nice.