This past week has been challenging, what with all the political turmoil. So I'll opt for a lighter post, with another musical entry.
Several popular music pieces are themed on the IGY. The best known song, which I will focus on in this entry, was "I.G.Y.", written and sung by Donald Fagen (previously of Steely Dan) as a solo artist, issued in 1982, the 25th anniversary of the IGY. I didn't read the local Sunday paper yesterday, where I usually scan the celebrity birthdays. Had I done so, I would have seen that it was Donald Fagen's 73rd birthday, and I would have finished this entry to post it on his special day. Anyway, belated regards!
I own I.G.Y. as a vinyl 45 rpm (4 copies), with Walk Between Raindrops as the B side. The single reached number 8 on Billboard's 1982 Adult Contemporary chart, and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1983, losing to "Always on My Mind" (by Willy Nelson, who was featured in the Monk episode Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger that I coincidentally watched just yesterday).
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| On the vinyl, the song is called "I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World)" |
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| Front of the single's jacket |
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| The back cover titles the song "I.G.Y. (International Geophysical Year)", clarifying the reference |
Here you can listen to the studio version. Below is an excellent live performance of the song. That's Donald Fagen on the vocals, and Steely Dan partner Walter Becker (RIP) on guitar:
I didn't really get the meaning of the song for years, since it came out at a time when I did not follow popular music so closely. Plus, the lyrics never specifically mention the IGY or geophysics.
I also own a 33-1/3 vinyl LP (2 copies), cassette (1 copy), and the CD (1 copy) of the album The Nightfly. The website best albums ever ranks it via meta-analysis as the 9th best album of 1982 (Thriller was #1), 95th best of the 1980s (Doolittle by The Pixies was #1), and 637th best album ever (Ok Computer by Radiohead was #1).
The album liner notes contain the significant:
"Note: The songs on this album represent certain fantasies that might have been entertained by a young man growing up in the remote suburbs of a northeastern city during the late fifties and early sixties, i.e., one of my general height, weight and build."
You can see in this note and in the lyrics below a retro-futuristic techno-optimism that Fagen as a young lad might have shared with his fellow Americans during the period of the IGY in the late 1950s, although it has been suggested that this was a sarcastic look backwards at things that never came to be. Imaginations of solar-powered cities, a transatlantic tunnel, permanent space stations, and spandex clothing, all managed by wise technocrats wielding powerful computers, just might have become reality in time for a marvelous U.S. bicentennial in 1976.
Lyrics
Standing tough under stars and stripes
We can tell
This dream's in sight
You've got to admit it
At this point in time that it's clear
The future looks bright
On that train all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
Well by seventy-six we'll be A.O.K.
What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free
Get your ticket to that wheel in space
While there's time
The fix is in
You'll be a witness to that game of chance in the sky
You know we've got to win
Here at home we'll play in the city
Powered by the sun
Perfect weather for a streamlined world
There'll be spandex jackets one for everyone
What a beautiful world this'll be
What a glorious time to be free
On that train all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
(More leisure for artists everywhere)
A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision
We'll be clean when their work is done
We'll be eternally free yes and eternally young
What a beautiful world this'll be
What a glorious time to be free
Something like this, perhaps:
I also have the sheet music (2 copies). First page:
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| Aren't you glad you now know this song is about the International Geophysical Year! |
A future post will include some covers of this song, and a couple of other IGY tunes.
Great song! To me (a millenial), the chorus and saxophone lick sounds really familiar, though not necessarily the rest of the song. I wonder if it's been sampled in any more contemporary songs or contexts?
ReplyDelete90 minutes from New York to Paris... that's on a hypothetical undersea train ride? I assume that's purely science fiction, yeah?
Perhaps my morale is low because of the recent news cycle, but I have to say, it's a bit depressing to consider the techno/scientific optimism of this song, side-by-side with the current reality of climate change, mass species extinction, political inaction, and some of the many other ways that the world didn't turn out quite as beautiful as may have been hoped 3 decades ago...