"In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus)" is a 1969 hit song by the American pop-rock duo of Zager and Evans. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks commencing July 12, 1969.[4] It peaked at No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in August and September that year.[5] The song was written and composed by Rick Evans in 1964 and released on Truth Records in 1968.[6] It was picked up by RCA Records. Zager and Evans disbanded in 1971.
Their follow-up single on RCA Victor, "Mr. Turnkey", reached No. 48 in the Canadian pop charts and number 41 in the Canadian AC chart.[7][8] Another single, "Listen to the People", charted at No. 100 and No. 96 in Canada.[9]
Summary
"In the Year 2525" is a song about the journey of mankind over a 10,000-year span. It predicts that man's thoughts, relationships and body will be negatively impacted by technological advances and ends with man's extinction.[10]
Recording
The song was recorded in one take in 1968, at a studio in a cow pasture in Odessa, Texas.[11]
Personnel
Denny Zager & Rick Evans – acoustic guitars & vocals
The record had regional success so RCA Records picked it up for a national release. RCA producer Ethel Gabriel was tasked with enhancing the sound and arrangement. The track went to number 1 on the U.S. charts within three weeks of release.[13]
Legacy
Famously, the song made Zager and Evans the ultimate one-hit wonders; for many years, the Nebraska duo were the only artist to hit the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic -- and never had another hit on Billboard's chart nor in Britain. (The Canadian group Magic! went to number one in both the US and the UK with "Rude" in 2014, but have not had a hit record outside of Canada since.)
The song has been covered at least 60 times in seven languages, including a Jewish parody recorded by Country Yossi, and an Italian version recorded by Zager and Evans called "Nell'Anno 2033".[14][15]
Zager and Evans themselves referred to "2525" in one of their later songs, "Yeah 3²" (1970): "I'm gonna call it "In The Year 2525", or something like that/And if it sells, then I'll do well, gonna pay this woman back".
Two lines of the song are sung by the inmate Murphy in the 1992 film Alien 3 immediately prior to his death.
Brief snippets are played in "The Time Is Now", the second-season finale of the TV show Millennium, which depicts an apocalyptic event.
The song was rewritten and used as the introductory theme for the 2000 TV series Cleopatra 2525.
In 2010, it was parodied as "In the Year 252525" in the seventh episode of Futurama's sixth season, "The Late Philip J. Fry", as Fry, Professor Farnsworth and Bender travel forwards through time to find a period in which the backwards time machine has been invented.[17]
The BBC Radio series 2525, a sketch show set in that year, featured a cover of the song with its first lyric as its introductory theme.
The first few verses of the song are used as the opening theme while the credits roll in the 2006 film Tunnel Rats.
Zager once said that a Time magazine cover from 1969 featured him and Evans with the caption "Even The Beatles would be jealous". However, no cover of the duo is included in Time's magazine history for 1969.[19][20]
^Reynolds, Tom (2005). I Hate Myself and Want to Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You've Ever Heard. Milsons Point, N.S.W.: Random House. p. 85. ISBN1-74166-020-3.
