A musical version of H.G. Wells classic tale of alien invasion.

In 1979, Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of the Worlds impacted the world like a cylinder from Mars. The narrator is voiced by Richard Burton who puts all of himself into the words spoken. Other parts are played by Justin Heywood (of the Moody Blues) as the sung thoughts of the journalist (the narrator), Phil Lynott (lead singer of Thin Lizzy) as the preacher, and David Essex as the artillary man.

Perhaps the unsung stars of the piece though is the music, put together with synthesizers, heavily distorted guitars and various other instruments, backed by a string section that ties it all together. The opening music is as distinctive as the opening few bars of Star Wars. With various themes throughout the record, each for a particular situation, each part of the story stands out from each other while still being tied together.

With the dialog taken straight from the book, the combination, along with the music, leaves the listener to imaging so much of the story that it becomes personal. Each person has their own impressions of what the Martians look like, even what journalist looks like. The only thing not left to the imagination is the Martian war machines, the tripods that are so wonderfully illustrated on the cover and throughout the booklet. Perhaps one of the most iconic album covers ever, the image of the war machine firing its heat ray on the destroyer Thunderchild is burnt into so many people’s memory.

Luckily, the musical version is set in Victorian times, the same as the book. Don’t get me wrong, the two movies (1953 and 2005) were both enjoyable, both had good and bad moments, but they both lacked something that only the original setting could convey. After all, when Martians land nowadays, we have nuclear weapons, lasers etc… available to us so we wouldn’t be as concerned as if we were living in Victorian times without anything more powerful than cannons to go up against these Martian war machines carrying heat rays. It becomes a lot more scary without planes to escape on, without advanced weapons to fight with, and without global communications to be kept informed as to what is happening.

The album has been re-issued several times along with re-mixes. At present, there is even a tour of the album where the musicians are backed by an animated movie and a giant head of Richard Burton.

I truly believe that Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds is as important and significant as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I really do wish that some brave movie maker would do yet another remake of the book but set it in the right era, with the Martian machines looking as they did on the cover of the album. It would HAVE to incorporate both the music and the designs from the album, but most of all, it would have to use the classic ULLA to voice the Martians.