# In 2525: What's Your Take On This Oldie? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 1, 2008, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454 "2008-08-01T03:10:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/1 "2008-08-01T03:10:03Z")
Just wondering what you think of that oldie “In The Year 2525”, and what may have inspired this grim outlook for mankind? (And, some of it is already coming true!) Was it inspired by the bleak outlook during the era of the Vietnam War? Or, perhaps the Cold War in general? Or, was it sparked by the heightened awareness of the environment during the early 1970’s (when “ecology” even had a logo and a flag)? ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/2 "2008-08-01T03:21:18Z")
It used to scare the hell out of me listening to it on oldies stations when I was in the car with my parents and little. Just…so creepy. Now it’s kind of cheesy. Reminds me of Brave New World in some ways, except people didn’t even have sons or daughters. I suppose the part about not needing a husband or a wife to have kids is true, but most people are still doing it the old fashioned way. I’m not sure most of the rest of it is true, though. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/3 "2008-08-01T04:12:28Z")
I was around then. Nothing to do with the Vietnam War. A lot to do with the Cold War. [Television performance by Zager & Evans](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQB2-Kmiic). ---
**Author:** ![Rachael\_Rage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@Rachael\_Rage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachael_Rage)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/4 "2008-08-01T04:42:36Z")
All I know is that Zager & Evans are/were from Lincoln, Nebraska. Cornhuskers, _represent_! ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/5 "2008-08-01T07:36:16Z")
I’ve always thought it was a rather stupid song, and not interesting musically or lyrically. It’s too self-important to be amusingly cheesy and not good enough to be worth talking about seriously. Did Zager & Evans do anything else of note? ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/6 "2008-08-01T07:48:41Z")
I might not be remembering right – the 70’s were a blur for me (raising kids and working) – but I remember the song as fitting right in with other bleak, depressing, and scary stuff that was going on at about the same time. Edgar Cayce’s book predicting massive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions was a best seller. Also, a comet was coming or some planets were aligning (Jupiter Effect?) – that was gonna take care of whatever was left after Cayce’s quakes and volcanos. Viet Nam and the riots of the 60’s were still fresh in everyone’s minds. There was a gas shortage. Everybody was cranky. The song just confirmed what many people were thinking. We’re all doomed. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/7 "2008-08-01T08:04:26Z")
[QUOTE=AuntiePam] I might not be remembering right – the 70’s were a blur for me [/QUOTE] Very blurry. It’s a 1969 song. ---
**Author:** ![phil417](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6bbea6/32.png) [@phil417](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phil417)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/8 "2008-08-01T08:11:48Z")
Yeah, I remember the song. I remember that an upperclassman used to sing it while putting the moves on us younger girls. (His idea was that let’s get it on…there may might not be a sexual tomorrow). I thought it was dumb then, & I still think it silly. Hey, it was just a pop song. Love, Phil ---
**Author:** ![Sierra\_Indigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sierra\_Indigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sierra_Indigo)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/9 "2008-08-01T09:01:46Z")
All I know is that it was co-opted into a [theme song](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra_2525)… ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/10 "2008-08-01T12:40:32Z")
I love it. I like weird old songs that get me wondering, “Just what the hell were they thinking when they wrote that?” and “Did people take this seriously at all?” It’s sort of how I feel when I watch old movies, and find I’m paying more attention to the clothes of the actors than the plot. It’s an oddly flavored bit of The Way Things Were Then. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/11 "2008-08-01T13:02:24Z")
[QUOTE=Walloon] Very blurry. It’s a 1969 song. [/QUOTE] And that means it was played over and over again all through the 70’s. This song and that one about Timothy, was it a man or a donkey, that was eaten? Seasons in the Sun too, mopey dark songs with a catchy jingle that drove you crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Borborygmi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/borborygmi/32/217_2.png) [@Borborygmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Borborygmi)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/12 "2008-08-01T13:19:17Z")
“In the Year 2525” comes up often in lists of the worst songs of all time; I’m surprised this thread hasn’t already devolved into mere statements of contempt for it. I’m particularly fond of this [post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=404045#post8152145) by **RickJay** in a thread titled “All Time Worst One Hit Wonders”: > [@RickJay](#): > > You betcha. “In the Year 2525” is the worst song ever, by any band, one hit wonder or no. > > Hell, it’s not just the worst song ever, it’s the worst ANYTHING ever. Anyone who thinks any other song is worse surely hasn’t heard “In The Year 2525.” Oh, don’t go out and TRY to hear it. You don’t want to. A year and a half later I’m still waiting for the chance to drop the line “‘In the Year 2525’ isn’t just the worst song ever, it’s the worst ANYTHING ever” into a conversation IRL. Still makes me giggle, it does. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/13 "2008-08-01T13:23:57Z")
[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Year_2525) has just reminded me of the full song title, to wit _In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)_. [QUOTE=Derleth] Did Zager & Evans do anything else of note? [/QUOTE] However, I didn’t know this: > [@](#): > > It is not typical for a recording artist to have a number one hit single and then never have another chart single for the rest of their career. “In the Year 2525” gave Zager and Evans this dubious status twice. They were, and remain, the only act to do this in both the U.S. and UK singles charts. Their followup 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 chart. [Here](http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/m/mrturnkey.shtml) is the lyric for _Mr. Turnkey_. I can’t find a Z&E performance of the song on video. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/14 "2008-08-01T13:28:02Z")
I really like it. It’s catchy and weird and interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/15 "2008-08-01T13:57:18Z")
_In the Year 2525_ is stupid, and cheesy, and creepy all at the same time. I guess the best thing you can say about it is that it tries to be creepy and it succeeds, so it achieves the desired effect. As for the Zeitgeist that spawned the song, someone like **Exapno** could probably write a better exegesis on utopian versus dystopain visions of the future, but I perceive that there was a change between the mid and late 1960’s. From roughly the end of the Korean War through the mid-1960’s, we had the Jetson’s-style future. It was a prosperous time, with a lot of consumer conveniences becoming common (air conditioning, clothes washers and dryers, colors TV’s), and the early days of the space program. The one clowd on the horizon was the Cold War, and we had dark visions like _On the Beach_ (1959) and _Dr. Strangelove_ (1964). But there was a feeling that, if we avoided blowing ourselves up, we’d have a billion-volt all-electric Jetsons future with robots, picture phones, and a two-rocket garage. Somewhere in the late 1960’s that all changed. People lost interest in the space program, there was concern about trashing the environment and overpopulation, and a general feeling (especially among young people) that consumer prosperity wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Why get excited about a rocket when your car was Unsafe at Any Speed and was trashing the environment and enriching some square capitalist corporate greed-head? Pretty soon your arms were hanging limp by your side, and you were picking your daughter from the bottom of a long black tube. ---
**Author:** ![thirdwarning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@thirdwarning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdwarning)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/16 "2008-08-02T03:22:09Z")
[QUOTE=Chez Guevara] [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Year_2525) has just reminded me of the full song title, to wit _In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)_. [Here](http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/m/mrturnkey.shtml) is the lyric for _Mr. Turnkey_. I can’t find a Z&E performance of the song on video. [/QUOTE] Those lyrics aren’t quite the way it was recorded. I have the 45. I think Zager and Evans, or at least whichever of them did the writing, had a very dark view of the world. The ‘B’ side of that 45 is a sad song about lost love. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/17 "2008-08-02T03:27:38Z")
[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig] _In the Year 2525_ is stupid, and cheesy, and creepy all at the same time. I guess the best thing you can say about it is that it tries to be creepy and it succeeds, so it achieves the desired effect. [/QUOTE] Yeah, it’s the kind of thing an eight year old might find meaningful, which is about how old I was when I remember listening to it. When I got older, I found it manipulative and stupid. Okay, so there’s the idea of the future–why must it be inherently bad? And what is inherently bad about some of the things they mention? ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/18 "2008-08-02T04:51:30Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] I’ve always thought it was a rather stupid song, and not interesting musically or lyrically. [/QUOTE] Bingo. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/19 "2008-08-02T04:56:59Z")
Yeah, my take the first time I heard it in and the umpteen times since 1969 was that it blew chunks. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454/20 "2008-08-02T06:48:22Z")
The biggest problem I have with the song is that they are WAY too conservative in how long they think it will take us to make these big discoveries. For instance: > [@](#): > > In the year 6565 > Ain’t gonna 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 We’re practically at that point _now_. Yes, we still need a man and a woman to fertilize an egg, but we can do many, many genetic test on it to determine it’s sex, any defects it may have, etc… We are at the point now where you can, at the very least, have a child of the sex that you want, and even make sure that it doesn’t have any major genetic disorders, too. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-2525-whats-your-take-on-this-oldie/458454.md?page=2)