In the year 2525

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the Year 2525 (sometimes in the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus) called) is a 1969 duo Zager & Evans published apocalyptic folk rock -Song about the relationship of man to technology and to the earth, which is the worldwide million-seller developed .

History of origin

Denny Zager and Rick Evans broke up with the band Eccentrics in 1965 and decided to perform as a folk-rock duo. The song, written by Rick Evans in half an hour in 1964, was recorded in November 1968 for the small label Truth Records, which belonged to Zager & Evans, in the recording studio of Tommy Allsup Recordings in Odessa, Texas . The background instrumentation for the ballad comes from students at Odessa Permian High School. It started with an initial press of 1000 that Zager & Evans sold from the trunk of their car and to local record stores. After some local radio stations played the record, another 10,000 copies were pressed.

success

Zager & Evans - In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus)

In New York City , the unusual recording caught the interest of RCA producer Ernie Altschuler. On June 21, 1969, the title was released as In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus) / Little Kids (RCA # 74-0174), and on July 12, 1969, it topped the pop hit parade. It was the hit in 1969 at six weeks, which was the longest in first position. The addition to the title is the Latin translation of the beginning and the end . On July 8, 1969, a gold record was awarded for a million copies. In total, the song was sold two million times in the US by 1985 and another two million times worldwide.

On July 7, 1969 an EP and LP of the same name were released . As it turned out, Zager & Evans were a one-hit wonder because subsequent singles no longer hit the charts. It was very unusual for a multi-million dollar hit like this to come not from the famous recording studios but from a regional recording studio in western Texas.

Cover versions

There are over 25 cover versions of the piece. The singer Dalida published a French cover version as early as 1969 under the title L'an 2005 . In 1972 a German version of the duo Nina & Mike appeared under the title Was wird sein (in seven years)? whose text, however, relates to a couple's concerns about their future relationship. The band Visage released another cover version on their album Fade to Gray - The Singles Collection .

In 1991 the EBM band Project Pitchfork covered the song on their album Dhyani and in 1994 the band Laibach for their album NATO under the title 2525 with changed lyrics. The music for the 2000 television series Cleopatra 2525 was based on this song. In 2009, Ian Brown , singer and co-founder of Stone Roses , also released a cover version of the song on his album My Way . In the animated series Futurama , the song appeared with a slightly changed text in the episode The Incredible Journey in a Crazy Time Machine . The band Fields of the Nephilim coverte the song for her 2005 released album Mourning Sun .

Content and music

The visionary text is a journey through time through the future of mankind and begins in the year 2525. In intervals of usually 1010 years, the stanzas deal with predictions of human situations. So in the year 3535 the thoughts, actions and language of the human being are programmed by a daily pill. This pattern changes in each stanza, and musically the key increases by half a step ( chromatic shift ). Starting from A minor to A minor, then to B minor for the stanzas of the years 7510, 8510 and 9595. This contains a basic ecological message in the way that man has taken everything from Mother Earth without giving anything back to her . Then the fade-out begins again with the year 2525. Has everything been lived through before a new cycle began? Will humanity make a positive turnaround? The answer remains open. "The twinkling of starlight" (the light at the end of the tunnel) and "maybe it's only yesterday" should give hope.

The theme portrays the end of the world through passive acceptance and excessive dependence of people on their exaggerated technologies, which ultimately dehumanize humanity. Because of the pessimistic and negative content, the song belongs to the dystopias . According to Time magazine , the futuristic song sounds like it was composed by a computer from the RAND Corporation .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fred Bronson: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. Billboard Publishing, New York 1985, ISBN 0-85112-431-3 , p. 256.
  2. ^ Joseph Murrells: Million Selling Records. Batsford, London 1985, ISBN 0-7134-3843-6 , p. 296.
  3. ^ Joseph J. Carr, Joe Carr, Alan Munde: Prairie Nights to Neon Lights: The Story of Country Music in West Texas. Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock, Tex 1997, ISBN 0-89672-349-6 , p. 157.
  4. ↑ COVER.INFO entry about In the Year 2525
  5. ↑ What will happen (in seven years)? , Appearance by Nina & Mike in the ZDF show disco
  6. ^ Pop: Futuristic Nostalgia. In: Time magazine. 18th July 1969.

Web links