| "In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus)" | ||||
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German single cover |
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| Single by Zager and Evans | ||||
| from the album 2525 (Exordium & Terminus) | ||||
| B-side | "Little Kids" | |||
| Released | 1969 | |||
| Format | 7" | |||
| Genre | Psychedelic rock, space rock | |||
| Length | 3:15 | |||
| Label | RCA | |||
| Writer(s) | Rick Evans | |||
| Zager and Evans singles chronology | ||||
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"In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)" is a hit song from 1969 by American pop-rock duo Zager and Evans. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks commencing July 12, 1969. The song was written by Rick Evans in 1964 and originally released on a small regional record label (Truth Records) in 1968. A year later, an Odessa, Texas, radio station popularized the disc, which RCA Records quickly picked up for nationwide distribution.
Contents |
"In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)" opens with the words "In the year 2525, If man is still alive, If woman can survive, They may find...". Subsequent verses pick up the story at 1010-year intervals from 2525 to 6565. Disturbing predictions are given for each selected year. In the year 3535, for example, all of a person's actions, words and thoughts will be preprogrammed into a daily pill. Then the pattern as well as the music changes, going up a half step in the key of the song, after two stanzas, first from A flat minor, to A minor, and, then, finally, to B flat minor, and verses for the years 7510, 8510 and 9595 follow.
The song has no chorus. Amid ominous-sounding orchestral music, the final dated chronological verse is,
The summary verse concludes:
The song goes back to the beginning, starting all over again, with 2525 before the song's fade.
The overriding theme, of a world doomed by its passive acquiescence to and overdependence on its own overdone technologies, struck a resonant chord in millions of people around the world in the late 1960s.
The song describes a nightmarish vision of the future as man's technological inventions gradually dehumanize him. It includes a colloquial reference to the Second Coming (In the year 7510, if God's a-coming, He ought to make it by then.), which echoed the zeitgeist of the Jesus Movement.
It is unusual for a recording artist to have a number one hit and then never have another chart single for the rest of their career. "In the Year 2525" actually gave Zager and Evans this status twice; they remain the only act to do this in both the U.S. and UK singles charts. Their follow up single on RCA-Victor, "Mr. Turnkey" (a song about a rapist who nails his own wrist to the wall as punishment for his crime), failed to hit the main music charts on either side of the Atlantic (although it did manage to make the Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart, peaking at #106).
The song has been covered at least 60 times in 7 different languages.[1] A notable version of In the Year 2525 is sung by the italo-French pop singer, Dalida; another one by the UK new romantic group Visage; another version was used as the theme song for the short-lived science fiction series Cleopatra 2525. It is also featured in both parts of the two-part second season finale of Millennium where a man-made virus is threatening to wipe out humanity.[2] The Slovenian industrial group Laibach edited the lyrics in their cover version to make it appropriate for 1994's NATO album. There was also a dance cover of this song by The Act featuring Clinton III in 1993. More recently, it was covered by the gothic rock band Fields of the Nephilim, by the electronic body music band Project Pitchfork (album Dhyani), 1991, by the German electronic band Strauss & Roggenbuck, and most recently by Ian Brown on his 2009 album "My Way".
In the 1992 movie Alien 3, a prisoner is heard singing a line or two of the song while scraping the inside of a ventilator shaft, shortly before he is attacked by a juvenile Xenomorph and subsequently diced by a large ventilation fan.
The comedy film Gentlemen Broncos uses the song during its opening credits.
According to Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell, authors of The Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time (1991), who place the song at number six on their list of the 50 worst rock-and-roll singles, "science fiction and rock and roll don't mix any better than Zsa Zsa Gabor and reality". Others differ, calling the one-hit wonder "prophetic".[3]
The White Stripes refer to "the year 2525" in the song "You're Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl)" on their album De Stijl (2000).[4]
The Futurama episode "The Late Philip J. Fry" uses a parody of the song as three of its main characters travel through the various eras of the future, including the year 252525.
| Preceded by "Love Theme From Romeo and Juliet" by Henry Mancini |
US Billboard Hot 100 number one single July 12, 1969 - August 16, 1969 |
Succeeded by "Honky Tonk Women" by The Rolling Stones |
| Preceded by "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat & Tears |
US Billboard Easy Listening Singles number-one single (Zager & Evans version) August 16, 1969 (2 weeks) |
Succeeded by "A Boy Named Sue" by Johnny Cash |
| Preceded by "Crystal Blue Persuasion" by Tommy James and the Shondells |
Canadian RPM 100 number-one single August 2, 1969 |
Succeeded by "Baby, I Love You" by Andy Kim |
| Preceded by "Honky Tonk Women" by The Rolling Stones |
Swiss Singles Chart number one single August 26, 1969 |
Succeeded by "Je t'aime... moi non plus" by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin |
| Preceded by "Honky Tonk Women" by The Rolling Stones |
UK Singles Chart number one single August 26, 1969 |
Succeeded by "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival |