Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version Of H.G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds – a science fiction milestone of 1898 – is among the greatest musical works ever. Along with its musical score, chilling sleeve designs, gripping storyline and mesmerising performances from stars such as Richard Burton and Phil Lynott, it elevated the double-album to an art-form, and Wells’ tale was immortalised for future generations.
British-based New Yorker, Jeff Wayne, made his name during the 70s, producing commercials for the likes of Abbey National and British Airways, as well as radio (LBC) and TV themes, including TVam’s Good Morning Britain, The World Of Sport, The Big Match, the World Cup and many others.
He’d arrived in the UK in 1966, having studied jazz piano at New York’s Juilliard School Of Music, then graduated from high school and college (with a journalism degree, before switching to music) in California. His music career started there, playing keyboards in local bands and arranging and composing for anyone that would hire him. In 1969, before studying at London’s Trinity College Of Music, he laid down his credentials by composing the score for the West End musical Two Cities, based on Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities, starring actor Edward Woodward, which ran at London’s Palace Theatre.
Aside from a handful of albums – such as Pink Floyd’s The Wall – none could match Wayne’s The War Of The Worlds for its spectacularly grandiose vision and mesmerising realisation. It spent over five years in the upper end of the UK charts, and has rarely left the Top 200 since its release in 1978. It has spawned ballets, club and symphonic renditions, and been performed to by athletes and animals. It has even been spoofed by TV chat show host Alan Partridge, when he sang Wayne’s sole lyric from the album, “the chances of anything coming from Mars,“ while Geordie Michael exclaimed, “oh aye, man, The War Of The Worlds”! As Alan intimates, everybody’s heard of the album.
Pitting technologically superior Martian invaders against the Victorian Empire, Wells laid out a morality tale for his technology-fixated times. Society, it seemed, had become imbued with its own sense of invincibility, based on a blind faith in the advancement of science. He questioned whether Man’s pride in his achievements might have sowed the seeds for his destruction, with mankind unable to find technological salvation from the might of the Martian Fighting Machines. Their deathly image (brilliantly interpreted for Wayne by artist Michael Trim) has permeated the popular psyche, and Wells’ world is eventually only saved by God’s simplest creation – bacteria. It’s a timeless warning, and the power of Wells’ original is captured superbly by Wayne’s 96-minute musical interpretation.
Since its release in 1978, the composer, orchestrator and arranger’s magnum opus has become the biggest-selling stand-alone album ever. Among its stars are the late Richard Burton, in the role of Wells’ journalist/narrator; Justin Hayward, who offers The Journalist’s inner thoughts through song; while Phil Lynott is the Parson – Nathaniel – possessed by visions of Satanic Martians; Julie Covington as the Parson’s wife, Beth; and David Essex (with whom Wayne had already worked) is The Artilleryman.
The gatefold-sleeved package was released 40 years after Orson Welles’ infamous Halloween night radio broadcast about a Martian invasion of New York, which resulted in a minor panic, and the popular view that “we are not alone” still lends Wells’ tale potency. Listening to Wayne’s The War Of The Worlds over a quarter of a century after its release, one has the uncomfortable realisation that we could yet face alien perils.
Alongside Wayne on his sonic masterpiece were Chris Thompson (Manfred Mann’s Earth Band), Chris Spedding, Ken ‘Prof’ Freeman, Sky’s Herbie Flowers, Barry Morgan and percussionist Ray Cooper. They successfully re-create Wells’ quasi-gospel tale, from the oppressive opening of impending doom, and the shattering initial blows, to the tortuous triumph of good over evil.
For his musical tapestry, Wayne used artistic license to create a love interest, introducing Carrie in place of The Journalist’s brother. But Wayne’s opus transfigures all the key elements of Wells’ yarn into spine-tingling aural pictures. From the opening The Eve Of The War, burbling, futuristic synthesisers, stabbing guitars and dramatic orchestration create an idyll in which a menacing enemy wreaks its merciless wrath.
The deathly, burning Martian Heat Rays are simulated with piercing guitars and menacing synths on Horsell Common And The Heat Ray, with Burton’s rich tones commenting on the scene as if he was a radio reporter on the spot. The British Army is strewn about like blooded rag dolls, and the despair of the citizenry is all too clear in exchanges between The Journalist and a trooper, in The Artilleryman And The Fighting Machine. When all seems lost, contemplation of the fate of the human race is accompanied by reflections on loved ones, not least in Forever Autumn. Justin Hayward’s projection of The Journalist’s emotions is conveyed with shimmering beauty, while laying the way for an epic, brief encounter with Carrie, in a tumultuous quayside scene worthy of film director David Lean.
The ominous threat is highlighted even more starkly on Thunder Child, as Chris Thompson paints a harrowingly graphic picture of an ironclad’s valiant but vain attempts to decapitate Martian Leviathans in the North Sea. The pride of the Empire is obliterated, bringing the first movement – The Coming Of The Martians – and disc, to a bewildering close.
The second half of the story – The Earth Under The Martians – reveals all its horrifying aspects, notably the aliens using their human captives for nourishment. The Martians’ ghastly operations lead the Parson to believe that Satan is among them, his part played in fittingly deranged fashion by Phil Lynott. Two musical suites follow, gloomily re-creating the wind-swept desolation of The Red Weed, while laying the way for Mankind to seek a way out of an apparently hopeless situation. The Spirit Of Man encapsulates this, before the pitiful survivors are brought back down to, or rather beneath earth, with a bump, in Brave New World. Labouring under the stress of post-battle exhilaration, Essex describes in fantastically misconceived fashion how the population can rebuild their civilisation underground. Only when he realises that the Martians will have to be eliminated first does his dream crumble, underlining the straw-clutching futility of it all.
Burton’s hard-headed dismissal of the gunner leads the listener down a despairing blind alley, as any hope for victory seems lost – a feeling reinforced by the somnambulent Dead London. We share The Journalist’s despair, as Burton contemplates a suicidal last stand before the Martians, and only then do we and he learn that, unseen, Man’s ally, in the shape of humble bacteria, have struck a decisive blow against the extra-terrestrials, who lie dead in their supposedly impregnable machines. Where all Man’s efforts had failed, salvation has been delivered by the Almighty – a clear, poignant message to future generations.
This is emphasised by Wayne’s own Epilogue 2 (written with the Viking Mars landings of 1976 in mind), in which a NASA mission loses contact with its probes. A renewed threat to earth rounds off Wayne’s retelling of the tale, making for a chilling image of our nearest neighbour in the solar system, the Bringer Of War.
The seamless flow of the album’s storyline and musical backdrop owe much to the immense efforts that Wayne and those closest to him put into it. Fascinated as a youngster by stories of the human condition, Wayne shared with his acting impresario father, Jerry, a particular fascination for Wells’ saga, probably because The Journalist didn’t focus on the typical alien invasion scenario, but questioned the principles of evil and uncontrolled power, as well as the themes of conquest, the conquered, flight and pursuit. By 1975, they’d decided to try to convey the novel’s power and majesty in a musical journey based upon Wells’ route-map. They spent three years chasing copyrights and writing outlines of the narrative and music, drafting in Gary Osborne – who’d penned Elton John’s Blue Eyes – for lyrical input, along with Paul Vigrass, who co-authored with Osborne the lyrics of Forever Autumn.
The recording and mixing sessions took place between May 1976 and June 1977 at Advision and Abbey Road Studios in London. The father-and-son team’s vision was realised in grand fashion and incorporated Wells’ tripod Fighting Machines, the aliens’ Heat Ray, the Handling Machines that extracted human blood, the pre-dreadnought battleship, Thunder Child, the suffocating red Martian vegetation – The Red Weed – and the plight of the people. The overall effect is like watching the infamous post-apocalypse TV film of 1983, Threads, in which one has a compelling, morbid desire to take in the most harrowing of scenarios.
On 2 June 1978, a week before the album was launched, its first single was released. An edited version of Forever Autumn made No. 5 in July – not bad for a song that began life nine years earlier as a commercial jingle for Lego, before being included on the Queues album by Paul Vigrass & Gary Osborne. (It was reissued by MCA in 1975, while Forever Autumn was also the flip of the single, Men Of Learning – now worth £50). In order to boost sales and profile, TWOTW album was packaged in limited runs as two box sets. Each housed a giant colour poster (rated at £25 alone) and a Pan paperback edition of the Wells novel, one box containing two vinyl LPs, the other two cassettes.
In September ’78, The Eve Of The War was released as a 45, and North America and some European territories were treated to new lead vocals by Chris Thompson, while a seven-minute The Eve Of The War (Disco Remix) emerged in September ’79.
By then, David Essex’s Brave New World and Thompson’s Thunder Child had appeared, sporting variant picture sleeves in numerous countries. Among the most sought-after are the Spanish The Eve Of The War (unusually twinned with The Red Weed) and Forever Autumn, along with a Dutch issue of Forever Autumn from 1989 (coupled with Thunder Child), and a US promo that has mono and stereo versions.
Most intriguingly, CBS Canada manufactured brown-and-orange Thunder Child 12" singles that fetch three figures, while the UK got two 12" picture discs, with white and black edges, respectively.
In 1981, a musical Highlights spin-off boosted sales further, while the first double-CD version of the set, issued in 1985, topped the UK CD chart (following the success of 1984’s shoot-’em-up arcade video game).
Foreign-language editions of the album appeared in numerous countries, the first being a Spanish album dubbed in two forms. This was because the narrator, Anthony Quinn, spoke Mexican Spanish, requiring actor Terfilo Martinez to re-record the part for Iberian ears. A German version featured Curd Jürgens and such overseas editions sell for £40.
Having achieved two Ivor Novello awards and gold or platinum status in 17 countries, album sales in the UK have passed three million. Indeed, a new generation were hooked by dance remixer Ben Liebrand, whose unauthorised 1989 remix of The Eve Of The War went to No. 3 on the BBC charts, No. 1 on the Independent Radio Singles charts, and No. 1 for four weeks on the Club and 12" charts.
By 1995, Wayne agreed to more remixing, and a remastered, repackaged Special Edition – The New Files, with a reworked booklet and four remixes, reached No. 23. It was followed a year later by a revamped package with two replacement remixes.
Following another repackage and the release of a PC computer game and PlayStation version in 1999, ULLAdubULLA – The Remix Album was released in 2000. It offers 26 remixes by the likes of Todd Terry, Apollo 440 and Dario G. RC spoke with Jeff at his Hertfordshire home-cum-recording studio about the making of the album and its enduring appeal.
What was it about H.G. Wells’ tale that grabbed you?
It was the first story I read that excited me as a musician. I could hear sound and I felt it could be adapted, and not just as spoken-word with accompaniment. I had the perfect subject matter that inspired music, story-telling and exciting visual images. I decided the approach would be to make a continuous performance and to divide the work into two halves, just as Wells did. It was originally planned as a single album, with no paintings or guest artists, but the completed project was a double-album, with guest artists and originally commissioned paintings!
How did you decide on the cast?
For the entire music version, we wanted to do what other versions hadn’t – keep it in Victorian England. So from a casting point of view, that eliminated anybody who wasn’t British. With our Journalist, we wanted a voice that, from the first moment, took you into our world. We started with a list and our first choice was Richard Burton, though I don’t think we seriously believed we’d get him. In fact, ‘choice’ is the wrong word, in that any artists of the stature we were fortunate enough to attract aren’t ‘chosen’ – we could only ‘hope’ they would be keen on participating.
It’s been said that fate played a part.
For sure. Soon into the first day of recording in California with Richard, he told me, “my wife Suzy went out in New York (while Richard was appearing in the Broadway production of Equus) and bought me a pile of books. One of them, by amazing coincidence, was The War Of The Worlds. I read it just before your letter and draft of the script arrived. It was meant to be.” His agent, Robert Lantz, did the deal on the phone within minutes. Working with Richard was an absolute pleasure. He was one of the easiest people to get on with and possessed one of the great English-speaking voices of all time.
Your father appeared, too, in the NASA sequence.
Yes, although we tried it with both of us – sort of father and son doing an ‘Alfred Hitchcock’. But he was an actor, and the gulf between his performance and mine was too great, so we sacked me! After all his voices were recorded, we added effects to make them sound individual.
Why did CBS finance only part of the album cost?
I had a £34,500 production budget, based on my own estimate. But, with the creative concept changing from a single to a double-album, it eventually cost £240,000. CBS agreed to advance a further £34,500 as well as a contribution towards Richard Burton’s fee. By the end, CBS had put up around £75,000, and I put up the balance. It took everything I had, and we knew that if it didn’t work out, our house would have to go. But, to us, it was a great adventure and, with my wife Geraldine’s support, I went for it.
How did you go about creating such a complex work?
The first stage was re-reading the novel, and drawing ideas from it for the composition and script. The first draft, (authored by Doreen Wayne, Jeff’s stepmother) was written about the time I completed the first draft of the entire composition around early May 1976. Then, I booked into Advision and started to record. I was on keyboards mostly and conducted from there. Although not the last items recorded, the final major element was the strings, which were recorded over two evenings at Abbey Road’s Studio One. We had a 48-piece string orchestra led by Pat Halling, with 28 violins, eight violas, eight cellos and four double basses. The sound was fantastic, and when I heard the opening chords of The Eve Of The War, I got a chill down my back.
To what extent were the band involved in the creative process?
Usually on sessions, musicians will have their parts written out. But they were each given not only their individual parts, but any lyrics, script and even sound effect cues of each segment. This was because I wanted each of them to know not only what their music parts were, but also to get a feel for the story, when there was narration, singing, and even to know when the story-line was from the Human or Martian point of view. The band were brilliant, everyone performed with wonderful enthusiasm.
On a basic level, a number of compositions were built up from 70s disco rhythms. Although I knew I was attempting to compose and produce this epic piece, some of my compositions were arranged around the rhythms of the day and I hoped the work would reach out like great pop albums do. We thought in terms of singles and accessibility, without losing the integrity of this 96-minute continuous-play musical work.
You pioneered new recording techniques too.
Back in ’75, no one was experimenting with the equipment that we were using. Advision had the prototype Maglink, which was the first device that allowed the synchronising of two machines – in the case of TWOTW, two 24-track machines. So not only did you have 46 separate tracks for mixing, but also the ability to create countless 24-track slave tapes. So you could have groups of sounds and be able to select the best for the final mixing. From a slave tape you might have one 24-track filled with vocals, which you’d mix to, say, four tracks on the masters.
By the end of the production, we had filled up 77 multi-track tapes. When you consider that 16- and 24-track productions were the norm for that era, TWOTW was definitely breaking new ground, or possibly being buried in it! The Maglink kept breaking down, though, and nobody was expert enough to really know how to fix it, so over the entire recording process, a fair amount of time was lost. The upside, though, was that without the Maglink, TWOTW could never have been made, making the frustrating moments worthwhile.
Did you have any major hitches?
The only unexpected disaster was one day, soon after mixing was complete, I walked into my office and the manager of Advision, Roger Cameron, called me and said, ‘Jeff, are you sitting down?’. I said, ‘no’. He said, ‘sit down!’. So I did, knowing by his tone that something very serious had happened. I thought he was going to tell me that Geoff Young, our engineer, had had a heart attack and died. He said, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but Side Four was accidentally slashed by our tape operator soon after you left the studio. He thought it was the unwanted out-takes reel – your master mixes are in pieces. All we can do is offer you free studio time to remix Side 4.’ I was in a combination of shock and relief, most importantly that no one had died, but facing the task of remixing an entire side. It was almost funny!
How did you come to add Forever Autumn?
I needed a particular type of song and I couldn’t come up with anything better than Forever Autumn. As hard as I tried to compose another melody, I kept coming back to it. The beautiful lyrics by Paul Vigrass and Gary Osborne were a natural extension of the script and story even though it hadn’t originally been written for TWOTW.
What’s your favourite track?
The Red Weed pushed me into musical areas that I hadn’t been before. I was trying to interpret death and beauty at the same time: the Red Weed was a vegetation of death, which had a slow, crawling, smothering quality, yet still beautiful to the eye. I composed the main theme in two separate keys, which helped the eerie quality, but with a fluid melody on top like HG’s vision, which I hope we achieved.
The amazing 7-disc Collector’s Edition of The War Of The Worlds is issued by Sony BMG on June 13. Much of the Jeff Wayne discographical information and interview appears in a forthcoming TWOTW interview by Greg Brooks.
Justin Hayward speaks:
I had a call from Jeff and I knew some of his work. He said, ‘I’ve got a song for you, Forever Autumn? He sent me a copy and I thought it was really good. He asked me down to Advision and I sang it in one night. It was the easiest record I’ve ever made. Jeff knew exactly what he wanted, and it was only after that he told me more about The War Of The Worlds. I got involved and performed the vocals on The Eve Of The War, and it was the start of a great friendship.
I didn’t meet the rest of the cast until a reception, when the record was launched at the London Planetarium. Then I was asked to plug Forever Autumn, and I said, ‘no, not unless it gets in the charts’. About a month later, they came back and said, ‘it’s in the charts’! I always thought it incongruous that I should be the singing voice of Richard Burton, but I was the voice in his head, I suppose.
WIN THE WAR OF THE WORLDS GOODIES!
We have an amazing array of TWOTW goodies to give away, including an SCD-XB790 Super-Audio CD player, a limited edition framed Stephen Doig montage painting of The War Of The Worlds, a copy of the limited run The War Of The Worlds Collector’s Edition box set, several copies of the double-album set, and numerous other TWOTW goodies. To be in with a chance of winning one of these prizes, answer the question below and send it marked ‘Worlds’ to RC by 7 July or email rccompetitions@ metropolis.co.uk.
Which war did Great Britain actually face the year after H.G. Wells’ classic novel was written?
