Sometimes some artists can just read the tea leaves. They see they lay of the land and can just predict what everything will look like even way past the horizon. And sometimes those prescient thoughts show up in a classic rock song. Don’t believe us? Well, just stick around here for the musical analysis!
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Indeed, here below, we wanted to highlight three classic rock songs from artists who were able to take a look at the world in front of them, examine it, and then come up with some pretty strong predictions. Yes, these are three classic rock songs that actually predicted the future.
[RELATED: No Skips: 4 Classic Rock Albums You’ll Never Have to Fast-Forward]
“Relay” by The Who (Single, 1972)
Most people didn’t know what the internet was until about 1996. That’s when America Online really started to take hold of the population, at least in the United States. But the Who’s Pete Townshend seemed to have had a vision of the future when he put this song together. On it, he sings about a connected network of ideas—or dreams—that move impossibly fast. Could he have foreseen memes and tweets? Maybe, maybe not. But he did sing these lines,
Traveling twice as fast as on any freeway.
ev’ry single dream
is wrapped up in the scheme,
they all get carried on the relay
“Up From the Skies” by Jimi Hendrix from Axis: Bold as Love (1968)
Jimi Hendrix seemed somehow attuned to the world’s spirit. He was one with the vibrations of the Earth and cosmos. You could hear it in his guitar playing, his singing voice, and see it in the way he comported himself on and off stage as an artist. So, perhaps it makes sense that he would be concerned with the climate, even before scientists began foretelling the doom and gloom that real climate change could bring. And on this 1968 track, Hendrix sings about rising temperatures and fires in a world with a changing climate, offering,
I have lived here before, the days of ice
And of course this is why I’m so concerned
And I come back to find the stars misplaced
And the smell of a world that has burned
The smell of a world that has burned
Well, maybe, maybe it’s just a change of climate
I can dig it, I can dig it baby, I just want to see
“Come Together” by The Beatles from Abbey Road (1969)
We’ve all heard this song before. It’s a classic among the classic rock catalog. And we’ve all sung along with the opening vocals, probably saying something like “Shoop!” But did you know Beatles lead singer John Lennon is singing “Shoot me”? He repeats it over and over again as if he is daring someone to approach him with a gun and pull the trigger. Sure, it’s just a vocal lyric in a rock tune. But it’s done so regularly throughout the song it gets kind of eerie, especially given Lennon was shot and killed in 1980 in New York City. Did he know this was going to happen somehow? Maybe. He sings,
Shoot me
Shoot me
Shoot me
Shoot me
Here come old flat-top, he come groovin’ up slowly
He got ju-ju eyeball, he one holy roller
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker, he just do what he please
Photo by Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images
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