034: Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds (1978)
“It's like if Jesus Christ Superstar, ELO, and The Alan Parsons Project had a baby and it got a polymoog for its 1st birthday.”
ULLA!!! In this episode, Discord & Rhyme tackles Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the War of the Worlds from 1978, an art-rock/disco musical based on the 1898 H.G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds and which John posits as the most ‘70s album ever made. Featuring an unforgettable spoken word performance by Richard Burton, as well as an absolutely fascinating who’s who collection of prominent late-’70s vocalists from the worlds of rock music and musicals, this album has gone down in history in the United States as a cult obscurity, but is one of the 40 best-selling albums of all time in the United Kingdom. In this episode John leads Amanda, Phil, and Rich in a deep-dive examination of this album, with particular focus on the various leitmotifs used in creating the music, but also focuses on the question of how such a strange album, made by somebody best known for writing British advertising jingles and television themes, became such a lasting cultural phenomenon in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking nations outside the United States and Canada.
Miscellany
This album was recorded at a difficult time in Burton’s life and career, and it’s easy to assume that he did this solely for a paycheck, but by all accounts he was very enthused about the project and was a consummate professional in recording his parts. Wayne wrote the part with Burton in mind and sent him a letter asking if he’d be interested, and was shocked when Burton responded enthusiastically. The lesson here, as in life, is to shoot your shot.
Similarly, Justin Hayward ended up participating in this album because Wayne essentially said “I want the guy who sang ‘Nights in White Satin’” and managed to get him on board.” Again, shoot your shot.
It may not be clear from the episode, but we are aware that the version of “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band is in fact a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s original. Amanda doesn’t like that one either.
In “Horsell Common and the Heat Ray,” the vocal effect that RIch and John attributed to a vocoder was actually produced by a talkbox. We keep Producer Mike around largely because he knows things like this.
Amanda mentioned that Julie Covington was the only one of the performers on here with experience as both a singer and as an actor/actress. Prior to this album, David Essex had made some stage appearances, most notably in the stage version of Tommy, and around the time of the release of War of the Worlds he took on the role of Che in the stage production of Evita. He has been a stage performer multiple times since then.
This wasn’t made explicitly clear, but Wayne did not write any lyrics for this album (John incorrectly attributed the lyrics to “Forever Autumn” to Wayne, when they are actually by Paul Vigrass & Gary Osborne). The Burton dialogue, plus the Hayward-sung “The chances of anything …” was written by Jerry and Doreen Wayne; the lyrics to tracks with sung vocals were written by Osborne (except for “Forever Autumn,” which as mentioned also involved Vigrass).
In the interest of time, we did not mention one of the more fascinating spin-off projects related to this album: Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the War of the Worlds: The Immersive Experience, located in London. The website for it is included below and it looks like a trip.
This album has also inspired some rather impressive and elaborate fan art. Our favorite example was a video we discovered on YouTube where somebody created a Lego stop-motion adaptation of the entire album. Sadly, this full album version has been removed, but a video for the single version of “Forever Autumn” is still available.
The music over the closing credits of the episode comes from “Aa Dekhen Zara,” a Hindi-language song that makes no small use of the music from “The Eve of the War.” This song was used to amazing effect in the 1981 Bollywood film “Rocky,” which we have included in the links below because it is spectacular.
The 2006 live performance Rich alludes to is not available on DVD, but it is available in its entirety on YouTube, and is linked below.
The “Ernest at the carnival” bit we referred to is from Hey, Vern! It’s My Family Album! The specific segment is linked below and you really need to watch it.
If John’s voice seems a little rough in spots, it’s because he was in the early stages of a cold that turned into bronchitis starting the day after this was recorded.
The clips in this episode are taken not from the original 1978 mix of the album, but from a remix done in 2005. This mix generally emphasizes the drums and bass more than the original, highlighting the more danceable aspects of the music, and while some tracks, such as “The Eve of the War,” stick closely to the sound of the original, others, particularly “The Artilleryman and the Fighting Machine,” sound almost radically different in places. Both versions are on Spotify so you can hear the differences for yourself!
Other links
"The Eve of the War" in "Aa Dekhen Zara" in "Rocky" (YouTube)
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of the War of the Worlds: The Immersive Experience
Lego War of the Worlds: Forever Autumn (YouTube)
Interview with Jeff Wayne and David Essex on The War of the Worlds (The Guardian)
Interview with Jeff Wayne and Justin Hayward on The War of the Worlds (Record Collector Magazine)
Producer Mike Replaces Audio From War of the Worlds (2005 Movie) With "Iron Man" (YouTube)
Billy “Boogie” Worrell (YouTube)
Discord & Rhyme roll call
John McFerrin (host)
Amanda Rodgers (moderator)
Phil Maddox
Rich Bunnell
Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds tracklist
The Eve of the War
Horsell Common and the Heat Ray
The Artilleryman and the Fighting Machine
Forever Autumn
Thunder Child
The Red Weed (Part 1)
The Spirit of Man (includes Parson Nathaniel)
The Red Weed (Part 2) (includes The Artilleryman Returns)
Brave New World
Dead London
Epilogue (Part 1)
Epilogue (Part 2)
Other clips used
Jeff Wayne:
Forever Autumn (Single version)
The Fighting Machine (From the "Highlights" album)
The Artilleryman and the Fighting Machine (Max Mondo Remix)
Forever Autumn (As Lego commercial)
Forever Autumn (1972 version)
Gordon’s Gin (commercial)
Good Morning Britain Theme
World of Sport Theme
BBC Sixty Minutes Theme
The Eve of the War (New Generation version with Liam Neeson as narrator)
Others:
David Essex - Rock On
The Moody Blues - Nights in White Satin
Manfred Mann Earth Band - Blinded by the Light
Thin Lizzy - The Boys Are Back in Town
Andrew Lloyd Webber - Don’t Cry For Me Argentina
Richard Wagner - Tristan und Isolde: Prelude to Act 1
John Williams - The Imperial March
John Williams - The Princess Appears
John Williams - Princess Leia’s Theme
Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Toccata
Camel - Rhyader
Camel - Echoes
Nobuo Uematsu - People Without Hope
Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony 7: 1. Allegretto
Yes - The Gates of Delirium
Genesis - The Battle of Epping Forest
David Bowie - Warszawa
King Crimson - Starless
Genesis - Riding the Scree
Asha Bhosle and Kishore Kumar - Aa Dekhen Zara
Songs we mentioned but didn’t clip
Lou Reed - Walk on the Wild Side
Duran Duran - Planet Earth
Nobuo Uematsu - Dancing Mad
Nobuo Uematus - Tyrano Lair Theme
The Clash - I Fought the Law
Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
The Jam - Happy Together
ABBA - Money, Money, Money
The Moody Blues - I Know You’re Out There Somewhere
Yes - Tempus Fugit
Kanye West - Power
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Lucky Man
David Bowie - Sense of Doubt
The Simpsons - Underwater Wonderland
The Beach Boys - Kokomo
The Simpsons - You’ve Finally Made a Monkey Out of Me
George Harrison - What is Life
Kylie Minogue - Your Disco Needs You
Band/album personnel
Richard Burton - spoken words (The Journalist)
Justin Hayward - vocals (The Sung Thoughts of The Journalist)
David Essex - spoken words and vocals (The Artilleryman)
Chris Thompson - vocals (The Voice of Humanity)
Phil Lynott - spoken words and vocals (Parson Nathaniel)
Julie Covington - spoken words and vocals (Beth)
Jerry Wayne - spoken words (The Voice of NASA)
Jeff Wayne - composer, arranger, keyboards, synthesizers
Chris Spedding - guitars
Herbie Flowers - bass guitar
Ken Freeman - keyboards, synthesizers
George Fenton - santoor, zither, tar
Jo Partridge - guitars, mandolin, vocals (‘Ulla’s)
Barry Morgan - drums
Barry da Souza - percussion
Roy Jones - percussion
Ray Cooper - percussion
Paul Vigrass - backing vocals
Gary Osborne - backing vocals
Billy Lawrie - backing vocals
Credits
“Discord & Rhyme (theme),” composed by the Other Leading Brand, contains elements of:
Amon Düül II - Dehypnotized Toothpaste
The Dukes of Stratosphear - What in the World?? ...
Faith No More - Midlife Crisis
Herbie Hancock - Hornets
Kraftwerk - Autobahn
Talking Heads - Seen and Not Seen
Jeff Wayne - Horsell Common and the Heat Ray (this episode only)
You can buy or stream Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of the War of the Worlds and other albums by Jeff Wayne at the usual suspects such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon [affiliate link]. Follow Discord & Rhyme on Twitter @DiscordPod for news, updates, and other random stuff. Follow Rich @zonetrope, Amanda @MagneticInk67, John @tarkus1980, and Phil @pamaddox. Special thanks to our own Mike DeFabio, the Other Leading Brand, for production and editing. See you next album, and be ever wonderful.