46 S: Sci-Fi References in Music List
Description
This article is from the SF references in music List FAQ, by Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org with numerous contributions by others.
46 S: Sci-Fi References in Music List
S.P.O.C.K:
Swedish space pop band. They were originally called 'Spock' but
due to legal problems they changed their name to 'Space Pilots On
Channel K' or 'S.P.O.C.K' Their synthesizer based music is heavily
SF / Star Trek inspired. Their debut album 'Five year mission' contains
the following songs: Neutral Zone, Never Trust a Klingon, Charlie X,
Mr.Spocks Brain, Black Hole, Space Race, Edge of Forever,
and Last Man on Earth.
Saga:
Canadian progressive synth-rock band with a series of songs which
combine to tell a single story spread out over four albums, to wit:
From "Saga": Chapter 4: Will It Be You?,
and Chapter 6: Tired World;
From "Images At Twilight":
Chapter 1: Images,
and Chapter 3: It's Time;
from "Silent Knight":
Chapter 2: Don't Be Late,
and Chapter 7: Too Much To Lose;
and from "Worlds Apart":
Chapter 5: No Regrets,
and Chapter 8: No Stranger.
Roughly speaking, the story tells of space war, alien encounters,
and the aftermath of war.
Samson:
Even more British heavy metal... "Survivors" contains "Big brother", "Wrong side
of time". Head On contains "Hammerhead", and "Take me to your leader".
Sanders, Ed:
(A member of the Fugs at one time) released "Beer Cans on the Moon",
which contains such gems as a song about a yodeling robot in love with
Dolly Parton as well as some more topical songs. "Dark Carnival"
sets a number of Bradbury's "Illustrated Man" stories to music.
Sandy Bradley and the Small Wonder String Band(?):
"Interstellar Sweetheart"
Sangster, John:
Australian jazz musician, has two albums "The Hobbit Suite" and "Lord of
the Rings" which are jazz tone poems based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Satriani, Joe:
"Surfing with the Alien" and "Back to Shalla-Bal" are about the
Silver Surfer of comic book fame. (In fact, he's on the cover of "Surfing
with the Alien".) Also see the song "Ice-9", a reference to Kurt Vonnegut's
"Cat's Cradle".
Savatage:
(heavy metal) "Fountain of Youth" from "Power of the Night", "Hounds"
from "Gutter Ballet", "Beyond the Doors of the Dark", "Legions",
"Strange Wings", title track, and "White Witch" from "Hall of the
Mountain King", just to name a few. Here's a few more: "Sirens",
"The edge of midnight", "Hyde", "Last Dawn (instrumental)",
"Holocaust" and "I Believe", which is about a spaceship taking off
from earth because it's too polluted to sustain life, flying around
for a couple of thousand years, finding a decent planet to land on, and
discovering it's Earth.
Saxon:
"Solid ball of rock" contains the tracks "Altar of the gods" and "Lights in the sky".
Scanner:
They are a German speed-metal, and their first album, "Hypertrace", is an
SF story. 7 criminals were turned into supersoldiers during an experiment
during WWII. They went berzerk, and were shot into space, and their rockets
exploded, except one, who was found by aliens, and they taguht him to bring
peace to the world. The aliens gave him the mechanical planet Galactoss, where
he built 5 androids to send back to Earth, to collect data, so that he
could save the Earth from destroying itself. Their second album (recorded
with a new lead singer) and entitled "Terminal Earth" also
contains a few SF songs.
Schilling, Peter:
"Major Tom (Coming Home)"; perhaps a sequel to or re-telling of
Bowie's "Space Oddity" from "Error in the System" (originally
titled "Fehler im System") [also possibly based on the Bradbury story
Kaleidescope]; also "The Noah Plan" (about an exodus from Earth),
"Error in the System" (Earth as lost interstellar colony),
"Only Dreams" (computers plotting to take revenge on humans),
"Lifetime Guarantee (mind-controlled Utopia) and others.
There is some speculation that the translator may be responsible for the
SF content of some of these; for instance, the original (German) version
of "Only Dreams" ("...dann truegt der Schein") seems to be a non-SF song.
"Things to Come" includes "Zone 804" (aliens come to bring peace) and
"Lone Survivor" (man hides in bomb shelter, but war is averted; he's stuck).
Also, the song "Berlin, City of Night" (about fighting to reunite Belin
and Germany) was speculative fiction at the time that it was written.
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