Zager and Evans – In the Year 2525 ….One Hit Wonder Week

If you want to break up a party…play this song…it will clear a room with quickness. So enjoy the post and song!

To say it’s bleak is an understatement. I’ve always been interested in it though. It was released in 1969 and the other chart songs around it were happy…Sugar Sugar, Dizzy, the cool Crystal Blue Persuasion, and Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In… this one seems out of place in that bunch. The duo was Denny Zager and Rick Evans. Rick Evans wrote this song.

It peaked at #1 on the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, #1 in the UK, and yes #1 in New Zealand. It was number one around a week before the Apollo Space Mission. This doom and gloom song was recorded in a studio in the middle of a cow pasture in Odessa, Texas in 1968.

The line that I noticed was Everything you think, do and say Is in the pill you took today. Hmmm, kind of reminds me of a thousand pills made now to control your illnesses or just make you feel better. Also if you really want to read into it… In the year 5555, Your arms hangin’ limp at your sides Your legs got nothin’ to do, Some machine’s doin’ that for you. That machine today would be a phone or a computer doing about everything. Buying your groceries, playing your music, and reading Max’s blog about that.

The other line I think about… You’ll pick your son, pick your daughter too, From the bottom of a long glass tube. Well, that happened on July 25, 1978, with the first test tube baby.

You probably guessed it by looking at the names but this was Zager and Evans, only hit. What are they doing today? The author, Rick Evans, sadly passed away in February 2018 in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the age of 75. Denny Zager is a highly acclaimed Guitar maker who makes his home in Nebraska. Nebraska is where both of them were from.

Their follow-up song was “Mr. Turnkey,” a song about a rapist who nails his wrist to his prison cell because he is sorry for his crime? Yeah, I wonder why that one didn’t hit? I admire the ambition but maybe a little too much inspiration was going on.

I have a quote from Zager at the bottom but here is another one and it’s interesting….Denny Zager: Before John Denver was discovered, he used to write to me all the time asking how we knew about “test tube babies” and things that hadn’t even been discovered yet. Rick used to tell him he had been abducted by aliens and “saw into the future.”

Denny Zager:  Rick (Evans) said he wrote the lyrics in 10 minutes in the back of a Volkswagen van after a night of partying and a lot of Mary Jane. He tried the song with a few bands he was playing with at the time, but the music wasn’t right and it wasn’t working. I thought the lyrics were intriguing, so I rewrote the music so it blended better with the lyrics. The first night we played it live we knew it was special because the crowd looked stunned and wanted to hear it again and again. 

Denny Zager: Like any band Rick and I had our squabbles, but there was a point in time that I felt we could have written some of the best music of the century. I miss him.

The follow-up!

In The Year 2525

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 a 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 wonderin’ 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

In the year 2525, if man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

62 thoughts on “Zager and Evans – In the Year 2525 ….One Hit Wonder Week”

  2. “Lovelier than oil rights”? Now there’s a line to make for a hit record. When I looked into the song more (this was my first hearing of “Mr Turnkey”, though I definitely remember [and, should I admit remembering all the lyrics to?] “In the Year 2525”. I found this on another blog: “‘In the Year 2525’ might be the worst #1 hit single ever. But ‘Mr. Turnkey’ might be the worst song ever recorded PERIOD. Not surprisingly, it did not chart in the United States.” Is that why Zager & Evans have to share the day with Every Mother’s Son?

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    1. I don’t know…there have been some bad number ones…especially later on in the 70s/80s….but yes…point well taken. These are two songs unlike the others I posted. I like both of them…they take me back to childhood but…would I just play them everyday? No. This one is interesting if nothing else. I was shocked it was number one all over the world.

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    1. It did get a lot of airplay. The next year, we couldn’t escape hearing “One Toke Over the Line”. My father loved that song because he thought it was a Christian song as well as being bouncy and catchy. He heard “sweet Jesus” but had no clue what “one toke over the line” meant coming just before that.

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      1. I will admit to loving One Toke Over the Line… when I heard it as a kid…one of my sisters boyfriends told me what it was about…so I was wise to it. When I saw the clip of that song being played on the Welk show…I couldn’t believe it! Many thought like your dad.

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  6. Yep, and it’s all coming true. It was a controversial tune at the time of release. I wouldn’t say the two fellow’s were visionaries, but they captured the future with this song. “One Toke Over the Line”, been there and done that.

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    1. I never really thought about it as much earlier but yes…a lot of the stuff is coming true. The part about recording this in a studio in the middle of a cow pasture interested me…

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  7. the future arrived quicker than they thought. A good song and one of the ’60s ultimate one hit wonders. Pretty remarkable actually how many predictions seem to have proven true already, in the year 2023.

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    1. I have a love/hate relationship with the song. At times I really like it…some times it depresses me but…after reading about it…I do respect it much more….and it is an interesting study.

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      1. I quite like it but wouldn’t want it on a daily rotation. Lyrically, the feel is a bit like ‘1984’ the book, a bit bleak but also a valid warning of what to try to avoid. Too few seem to heed that advice.

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      2. Yes…it is a message that someone would ignore…but it is very interesting… yea once in a while is fine. I do like it…

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  9. Great one hit wonder!
    Didn’t realise it was 69, thought it was earlier than that with its Alamo trumpet.
    I’ve heard that song a zillion times and had no idea what those dudes looked like… now I know!

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    1. The mystery is solved! lol.
      Yea it is an interesting song…the history of it is pretty cool as well. I didn’t know they were Americans.

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  10. I remember how intently I listened to that song as a kid. And totally freaky how so much has come to pass from it (so far.) Almost like these two were ET astronauts visiting. The second song about the rapist is a real upper for sure, especially the crossdresser at the end.

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  11. Let’s hope this part comes to pass, sooner rather than later: “now man’s reign is through” There are some that say man’s reign has ended over and over again so their closing statements are also prophetic!

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  14. It’s one weird song. The second one is beyond odd. It sounds like Z and A settled on career self sabotage to me. What happy little wrist-slitter of a ditty was on the ‘B’ side, ‘Wintering Over With The Donner Party?’

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      1. That song ain’t been written, but I was thinking of that gut-wrenching offering by the Buoys, ‘Timothy.’
        Actually I might have a… heh heh… stab at writing ‘Wintering Over.’ Why not? No one ever said I had much taste anyways.

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      2. Oh I know… but now I want it to be. That is almost like “Springtime for Hitler”
        Who cares about taste? Have you listened to the radio recently?

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      3. You have a little bad taste competition. A band had a local hit here with “Mary Jo”, a song about Mary Jo Kopechne’s death in a car crash with Teddy Kennedy (for those of you old enough to remember or the ambition to look it up).

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      4. I know that one!!! I was reading about what happened and the article mentioned that song.
        I have one for you…a song by Jimmy Cross “I Want My Baby Back”

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      5. Jimmy Cross sounds like Gomer Pyle. The song sounds a lot like real songs until it goes off the rails (“Leader of the Pack”, “Deadman’s Curve”…) There must be more than one song about Mary Jo. This was a band with a single that I don’t think was released outside of Madison WI, so I’d be blown away if you heard it. (I wish I still had it. The flip side was “’53 Ford”.) I can’t recall the band’s name but the composer was likely Peter Newton, who went on to a theatre career in San Francisco.

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      6. I think the one I heard was Ode To Mary Jo (Kopechne)…. a parody of Ode to Billy Joe. I’m looking for it now…it was on some site.
        That may not be the one you are talking about.

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  15. Possibly one of the most catchy doom and gloom songs I know. I’ve always liked it. When I heard it for the first time, I didn’t speak a word of English, so obviously didn’t pay attention to the lyrics. To this day, in most cases, I still very much focus on the music, the singing, the sound of the instruments and the groove before paying attention to the lyrics. It also depends on who the artist is.

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  16. This is a weird and gloomy #1 hit song that takes me back to seventh grade and my science teacher loving it. It got a lot of airplay on the radio.
    Another weird and gloomy but catchy song from around that time (don’t remember the date or by whom) was Timothy. Sometimes, you just have to eat a friend to survive.

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  17. Yeah it’s doom and gloom, but I think it’s a comedy tune at heart. Like a p-take of the sort of fire and brimstone preacher who thinks we’re all off to hell. And who can even get their head around the year 9595… Very over the top…

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      2. Oh JEEZ! I love this! I’ve heard his name somewhere but never heard him…”I take a healthy bite From your dainty fingertips.” That is up there and probably passed Excitable Boy as deranged. I kept thinking of Bruce when I heard it…right up his story alley.

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      1. Self punishment eh? And yes, Halloween… it brings out the worst in us. That’s the fright nite I take down the ‘Beware Of Doberman’ sign and leave the gate and Gnasher unchained. No, I lie, we don’t have a dog, but our cat is the grumpiest sour puss you could imagine.

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      2. Your own attack cat!
        My dog would show thiefs where the valuables were and lick them to death. She scares people until they meet her. It’s hard to be vicious looking when you are a Saint Bernard.

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