It’s time again for Song Lyric Sunday, and this week Jim is inviting us to play a song that references light or space. His very informative post One Light Day Away From Earth gives the background to this, and there’s a clue in the header picture, which I have ‘borrowed’ from him..

Of the two key words I’m going for space, with two songs, and I have a feeling what I might be hearing from someone else on this theme. But I wouldn’t want to spoil her thunder so my two choices are different. Here’s the first:

The Byrds, with Mr. Spaceman, the lyrics for which can of course be found at genius.com.

Mr. Spaceman was a track on The Byrds’ third album, Fifth Dimension, which was released in July 1966 in the US and September 1966 in the UK,  and peaked at #24 in the US and #27 in the UK. This was the third single taken from it, in September in the US and October in the UK: it got to #36 in the US but wasn’t a hit in the UK, though I remember it getting a lot of airplay on the pirate radio stations. It was written in early 1966 by band member Jim McGuinn, aka Roger, and was – along with 5D (Fifth Dimension) – one of two science fiction-themed songs on the album. It was initially conceived as a “melodramatic screenplay” but then evolved into a “whimsical meditation on the existence of extraterrestrial life.” Well, that’s what the liner notes said on the 1996 CD re-release of the album, anyway.

The single release of the song was accompanied by a spoof press announcement from the Byrds’ co-manager, Eddie Tickner, stating that he had taken out a $1,000,000 insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London against his clients being kidnapped by extraterrestrial visitors. Despite Tickner’s statement being an obvious publicity stunt and the deliberately tongue-in-cheek nature of the song’s lyrics, both McGuinn and fellow band member David Crosby apparently felt hopeful about communicating with alien life forms through the medium of AM radio broadcast. In a later interview with Pete Frame for ZigZag magazine, McGuinn explained how he believed that this would have been possible: “I was interested in astronomy and the possibility of connecting with extraterrestrial life and I thought that it might work the other way round, if we tried to contact them. I thought that the song being played on the air might be a way of getting through to them. But even if there had been anybody up there listening, they wouldn’t have heard because I found out later that AM airwaves diffuse in space too rapidly.” And a fun fact: Mr. Spaceman was broadcast as a wake-up call to the astronauts aboard the NASA Space Shuttle mission STS-41-D (the first mission of Space Shuttle Discovery) on September 2, 1984. I can think of worse ways to be dragged from my sleep!

My second song for today is really more suitable to be played around Christmas time, as I have done several times previously, but I couldn’t resist including it today for this wonderful video:

Chris de Burgh, and A Spaceman Came Travelling, if you didn’t know it. And here are the lyrics, again from genius.com

A Spaceman Came Travelling was a track on Chris de Burgh’s second album, Spanish Train And Other Stories, which was released in November 1975 and peaked at #78 in the UK (in 1985!) and #64 in Canada, and has since gone Platinum there. The track was released at the time as a single, and reached #1 in Ireland, his home country. It has been re-released several times since then and has made the UK charts twice: at #40 in December 1986 and at #84 in December 2021. That might not sound much but it has clearly been a steady seller, as it has been certified Platinum in the UK for 600,000 sales. The song is a retelling of the Nativity story, with some artistic licence, and as a result has remained popular due to its association with Christmas and its inclusion in a number of seasonally-themed compilations. If you’d like to know more about the song and the inspirations behind it Wikipedia has a very good, detailed page on it, here.

The video I am playing was created for the 2010 re-recording of the song, which was promoted in Ireland by a competition to make a video for it. This was the winning entry, and I think it is wonderfully charming, and very cleverly done. It was made by a group of schoolchildren and their teacher, and I think it was a worthy winner. And I’ve always liked the song, too!

That’s my twofer for today: a fun mix, I think. All that remains is for me to thank Jim, as always, for running the show, and to wish you a very pleasant Sunday.

See you again for some Tuesday Tunes, I trust? 🤗