Okay, back in the late 1980s (or possibly early 1990s, but probably late 1980s) I listened to Top 40/Pop-type radio stations, and there was briefly a song charting with a line something about space travel or life in space or something like that–enough to catch my nerd ear but obviously not enough for me to strongly remember it well. The existence of it sometimes crosses my mind, though, and no amount of googling helped. (Before anyone suggests the Reba McEntire song, it isn’t the Reba McEntire song.)
The highwaymen? No so much top 40 as pop country.
Nope. “Pop”, as in the type that Casey Kasem played.
(ETA it may never have actually reached the top 40, but it was that style of pop.)
From the 70’s, but how about Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft, by Klaatu.
The Final Countdown?
(“We’re heading for Venus,” he said. “Maybe we’ll come back to Earth, who can tell?”)
That’s what came to my mind as well. The Carpenters also covered it.
Thanks, but this is something that very, very, very definitely was written in the late 1980s/possibly very early 1990s. And was something that sank without a ripple after briefly showing up–it is nothing that would be famous to anyone today.
The Final Countdown by Europe – 1986
Rocket by Def Leppard – 1987
Star Trekkin’ by The Firm – 1987
Sister Moon by Sting – 1987
Under The Milky Way by The Church – 1988
Star by Erasure – 1989
Man on the Moon by R.E.M. – 1992
Out of Space by The Prodigy – 1992
Someone Else’s Star by Bryan White – 1994
Wandering Star by Portishead – 1994
Thanks, it it isn’t any of those. Trying to think of something about the style–maybe it could be described as sort of REO Speedwaggony? And it wasn’t a song about space, it just mentioned it, possibly in the refrain.
Flock of Seagulls, Space Aged Love Song?
Julian Lennon’s “Saltwater” mentions taking “photographs from Mars.”
Was Bowie, Space oddity or Life on Mars?
Major Tom (Coming Home), by Peter Schilling, 1983, which is sort of like an unauthorized sequel to Bowie’s Space Oddity.
edit whoops, didn't see it wasn't about space. nmProbably too late (1992) but here you go : Tasmin Archer - Sleeping Satellite
Going after the REO Speedwagon angle…
Late 70s not 80s, Come Sail Away by Styx has the line
“We thought that they were angels, come to my surprise.
We climbed aboard their starship and headed for the skies”
Probably too early (1978) but Another Girl Another Planet by the Only Ones?
jMaybe The Kinks’ “Cliches of the World (B Movie)”? At about 3:00 there’s a spoken interlude:
*In his dreams he’s taken away by alien beings to another galaxy, deep in space, to a planet where a man can live out his fantasies, and experience unimaginable pleasures. *
That, or “Rio” by Duran Duran.
Is it the one where all the band members had Big Hair?
McCartney and Wings: Venus and Mars?
I.G.Y.? Not about space, exactly, but it’s very science fictiony. Released in 82.