A Song A Day: Feb 8th – A Musical Story + Giveaway Compo!

Ever since I first heard this album as a child, I fell in love with it. Ever since I was young, I had always enjoyed story books on audio cassette. I owned most of the Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl stories and would listen to them nearly every night I could. I think that was the reason why I enjoyed this next song/album so much.

I think it was 1996 when I first came across War of the Worlds. I think it was actually during a school lesson I heard it first. There was something about the story and the music combined which just struck something with me. I still don’t quite know why I enjoy this so much, but I do. For those of you have not heard Jeff Waynes Musical Version of War Of The Worlds, you are in for a treat.This is the same story that H.G. Wells wrote years ago and was first broadcast on radio, which lead people to believe that it was as real as it comes. It turned out that it was all fiction, and since then it’s been immortalised in literature history.

Fast forward to the 70’s and Jeff Wayne brought together a wonderful cast of musicians to record a musical version of the story, narrated by the late, great Richard Burton. The star cast included Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy) David Essex, Justin Haywood and more. The music performed though was moody, atmospheric, dark, despearing, inspiring, uplifting, cold, creepy or whatever it needed to be. The music featured heavy use of leitmotif (which means a recurring musical theme, such as a series of notes, a sound, a riff etc) used for characters or events in the story. I really can’t explain it in words, so I’m going to leave it at that and let the music do the talking below.

But before I go… I’m offering you the chance to win a Brand New copy of this album. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning this fine album is simply leave me a comment below letting me know you’re in the giveaway. The competition will run until 23-59 GMT Saturday. I’ll annouce the winner on Sunday by means of names out of the hat. Once a winner has been drawn. I’ll make contact with that winner to arrange posting it out to them! It’s really that simple.

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS NOW CLOSED – THANKYOU YOU TO EVERYONE WHO ENTERED AND SUPPORTED THE BLOG. I’LL BE DOING SIMILAR GIVEAWAYS IN THE FUTURE!

So yes. I hope you enjoy this marvel of music and story.

JOURNALIST: No one would have believed, in the last years of the
nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds
of space.

No one could have dreamed we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope
studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered
the possibility of life on other planets and yet, across the gulf of space, minds
immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and
surely, they drew their plans against us.

At midnight on the twelfth of August, a huge mass of luminous gas erupted from Mars
and sped towards Earth. Across two hundred million miles of void, invisibly hurtling
towards us, came the first of the missiles that were to bring so much calamity to Earth.
As I watched, there was another jet of gas. It was another missile, starting on its way.

And that’s how it was for the next ten nights. A flare, spurting out from Mars – bright
green, drawing a green mist behind it – a beautiful, but somehow disturbing sight. Ogilvy,
the astronomer, assured me we were in no danger. He was convinced there could be no
living thing on that remote, forbidding planet.

“The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one,” he said.
“The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one – but still they
come!”

JOURNALIST: Then came the night the first missile approached Earth. It was thought
to be an ordinary falling star, but next day there was a huge crater in the middle of the
Common, and Ogilvy came to examine what lay there: a cylinder, thirty yards across,
glowing hot… and with faint sounds of movement coming from within.

Suddenly the top began moving, rotating, unscrewing, and Ogilvy feared there was a
man inside, trying to escape. he rushed to the cylinder, but the intense heat stopped him
before he could burn himself on the metal.

“The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one,” he said.
“The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one – but they still
come!”
“Yes, the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one,” he said.
“The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one – but they still come!”

It seems totally incredible to me now that everyone spent that evening as
though it were just like any other. From the railway station came the sound of
shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance. It all
seemed so safe and tranquil.

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