Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds is musical literature
I love an album that does not grow old.
Imagine an album so good that it defined the life of the composer, so good in fact to become part of popular culture. An album so good (I’m sorry) that here in London is filling up theatres and secret cinemas every year, 40 years from the first release.
I find myself jumping between the original album, and the “The New Generation” version, still by Jeff Wayne, a “remaster” if you like, released in 2012. They sound entirely different, and the acting of the stars featuring in both give a different emotional impact.
I never was a book person, I can’t for the life of me follow through an entire novel without losing interest. I am grateful to this album for making a music person enjoy (in a way) this great science fiction story of H. G. Wells.
Track 1: The Eve of the War. The first time I heard this song I was in my early 20s, a nerdy friend of mine put it on, and only a couple of years later I went back to the album, it never left my memory from that first listen.
The narration is from a powerful baritone voice, the Journalist, actor Richard Burton recorded in the original, who was one of the highest paid actors in the world at the time. In the new version we have the most badass voice in Hollywood right now, Liam Neeson.
Again as I said this is the closest I can be to reading the book, and if I may add, sorry book lovers, this thing has a life of its own. The strings start with such drama, they put you straight into the action. If I, as a 7 year old had listened to this I’d have been scared shitless. These are the vibes of a Martian invasion, a beautiful and chaotic one.
The Artilleryman And The Fighting Machine is another great piece of storytelling. This album transits from narration to action really quickly. Synthesizers sounds like I’ve never heard of, singing like they think they’re electric guitars. All of that on top of an elegant orchestra of strings, and a sick drumming to keep the pace.
Very distinctive segments of melody repeat themselves but are never twice the same. Those segments are used in every possible combination and they complement each other so well. The spine-chilling alien war cry ripping through the melodies.
I suggest this track from the 2012 instance of the album instead. Available in UltraHD on Amazon Music, you can tell the author went back to compose with the same vision in mind, but with a whole different array of toys to play with. You can hear the sound of machinery layered with the melody, brutal industrial sounds to mimic the alien technology that would make The Chemical Brothers piss themselves. Just jump here at 9 minutes when the Journalist jumps into the water, such an immersive listen.
Track 4: Forever Autumn is where humanity starts to suffer and panic. And yet, half of the song is a mellow love ballad, and I love this contrast, I find it very human.
In the same song we have these two lyrics, how crazy is that?
I watch the birds fly south across the autumn sky
And one by one they disappear,
I wish that I was flying with them
Now you’re not here.
Like the sun through the trees you came to love me,
Like a leaf on a breeze you blew away…
and:
Never before in the history of the world,
Had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together.
This was no disciplined march, it was a stampede,
Without order and without a goal, six million people unarmed and unprovisioned driving headlong.
I can see with my mind’s eyes the exodus of people running for their lives, and I see a man lifting his head up and finding the thought of his beloved wife, and smiling, for just a second.
The Spirit of Man is a track I have heard hundreds of times but it always gets me.
The Journalist finds Parson Nathaniel in a church yard and contrarily to what he thought he’s still alive, and he is delirious, beliving the green flare from the cylinders are a sign of Satan, and the Martians are his Demons. I can say I prefer the 2012 version, where Parsons is Maverick Sabre and the wife Beth is Joss Stone. Their acting, and her singing are out of this world.
The exchanges between them sound passionate and loving, as well as scared and desperate. The drama and the overall powerfulness give me the feeling of an Italian opera.
What can I say about the finale when Beth dies, I don’t know where to begin here. The Journalist narrates the worst news that could ever be, on top of a solemn strings melody:
The Martians spent the night making a new machine
It was a squat, metallic spider with huge, articulated claws
But it, too, had a hood in which a Martian sat
I watched it pursuing some people across a field
It caught them nimbly and tossed them into a great metal basket upon its back.
And just like that Beth is dead, before we could even realise what is actually happening. The first time I heard that, it hit me like a truck in the face. A lone electric guitar takes it from there, elevating and finishing the melody helped by a choir. “ Why! “ the man cries out loud. And to add to the sadness he shows he is still delirious, crying out to Satan. He finishes by singing the part of the chorus that was for the wife to sing, just with the opposite feeling, the one of hopeless surrender to evil.
Another segment I love is in the track Dead London in the original album, but found in Dead London (Part 2) in the 2012 version. That is when the Journalist takes a desperate decision when strolling through a devastated London, when “The desolation, the solitude, became unendurable”:
An inane resolve possessed me.
I would give my life to the Martians, here and now.
And the main theme from the first track starts playing again, the music at the beginning of the tragedy is born again, as if the Journalist was starting the war again, one of his own. That is when “The humblest things upon the Earth: bacteria. Minute, invisible bacteria!” are found to be the end of the Martians.
Followed by the dark twist, the epilogue in which the Martians seem to start coming back as angry as ever. I don’t have to tell you the ending it’s just too damn famous.
I love this album and I feel better now that I’ve put it black on white. If you are aware of other great storytelling albums, don’t hesitate to drop me a line below.
Originally published at http://talkingabout.music.blog on March 10, 2020.
