Jan 1, 2025

Maybe It's Only Yesterday


In The Year 2525
Zager and Evans (1969)
It's New Year's Day in the year 2025.  None of us are going to live for another 500 years, so I can think of no better time to listen to this one-hit wonder from the late 60's.  It's a song with an unusual structure that went to #1 in the charts in the US and UK as well as Canada, Ireland and New Zealand, and it tells a pretty frightening story of the fate of humankind.

Josh Caporale published an interesting essay about this song and its lyrics on Caponomics.  Click here to read it, and click play below to listen to the song that inspired it.
In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive they may find

In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lie
Everything you think, do and say
Is in the pill you took today

In the year 4545
You ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
You won't find a thing to chew
Nobody's gonna look at you

In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you

In the year 6565
You won't need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube

In the year 7510
If god's coming he oughta make it by then
Maybe he'll look around himself and say
Guess it's time for the judgment day

In the year 8510
God is gonna shake his mighty head
He'll either say I'm pleased where man has been
Or tear it down, and start again

In the year 9595
I'm kinda wondering if man is gonna be alive
He's taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain't put back nothing

Now it's been ten thousand years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what, he never knew
Now man's reign is through
But through eternal night
The twinkling of starlight
So very far away
Maybe it's only yesterday