The five greatest songs about UFOs
As humans, one of the most fascinating yet terrifying things we can possibly cast our minds upon is what lies beyond our planet. The fear of the unknown and extraterrestrial life has been pondered upon in art for years, whether delivered in the form of science fiction or through the documentation of supposedly ‘real’ encounters with men from outer space.
The fact that we know so little about the existence of life in other parts of the galaxy allows science fiction to be such a varied genre, with every person’s interpretation of what ‘alien’ can mean differing from the next in the weirdest and wackiest ways. Until there’s irrefutable proof either way that other life forms exist on other planets, these strangers will continue to take different forms in each story, and that’s what makes it such a perennially ripe source of inspiration for writers of all kinds.
In the world of music, many artists have offered up their own speculative takes on what chancing upon an alien or UFO might look like, and they often propose answers to some of the most burning questions on the topic. For example, what exactly does an alien look like? How do they make their spacecraft? Why are they so interested in human life and will they be friendly or hostile towards us?
Here are five of the best examples of songs that delve into the bizarre world of aliens and UFOs:
The five best songs about UFOs:
David Bowie – ‘Starman’
Starting off with possibly the greatest song about a visitor from space, David Bowie presented his ‘Starman’ as a sort of saviour who intended to visit Earth and bring hope to the world. Taken from the Ziggy Stardust album, which tells the story of a Martian sent to our blue planet to rescue the human race from impending apocalypse, ‘Starman’ further introduces the role that the titular character will play as part of the album’s overarching concept and zooms in on people’s expectations of what Ziggy’s arrival will mean for the future of the world.
Lots of people considered Bowie’s ability to produce music of the highest calibre so frequently across his career to be otherworldly in itself, and there were many more occasions where the songwriter delved into the outer realm in search of inspiration, such as the earlier single ‘Space Oddity’, ‘Ashes to Ashes’, and his final album Blackstar where he ascended to the cosmos to return to where he belonged.
Big Thief – ‘UFOF’
Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker has proven herself over the last decade to be one of the most naturally gifted storytellers in music, and the worlds she is able to build from the simplest ideas are nothing short of breathtaking. While these songs are often rooted in reality and touch on serious topics surrounding family and relationships, she’s not afraid to stretch her limits into the supernatural.
In one of her more fantastical narratives, she seemingly makes peace with a ‘UFO friend’ on the surface of things before having to say goodbye as they drift off into the night sky. In actual fact, the UFO and its departure act as little more than a metaphor for Lenker having to let go of something she once loved and allowing it to travel into the unknown. It’s one of the most strikingly beautiful songs she’s ever written and it marked the start of Big Thief’s transition from simply being an alternative folk act into a far-reaching rock group.
Sufjan Stevens – ‘Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois’
If there are two things you can count on Sufjan Stevens for, one is making you cry, and the other is being able to turn the most outlandish concepts that nobody else would dare touch into extravagant and sprawling albums. Illinois, his fifth album, managed both of the above and after having already done a concept album about his home state of Michigan two years prior, he turned his hand to tell the story of its neighbouring state.
On the opening track from his 2005 masterpiece, Stevens explores one of the Prairie State’s modern folk tales where several eyewitnesses reported seeing a giant black triangle silently floating above the region in January 2000. Now commonly referred to as the Southern Illinois Incident and disputed in terms of the story’s authenticity, Sufjan decided to weave a story out of the sightings and turn them into a tale about locals fearing that the sightings were a sign of the impending rapture and that the antichrist is on his way to the town.
The B-52’s – ‘Planet Claire’
A band so unusual in their presentation that they could quite easily have been mistaken for being from outer space themselves, The B-52’s were a rock group unlike any other. To further emphasise their peculiar nature, they opened their debut album with ‘Planet Claire’ – a song about a woman who seemingly arrives on Earth from a location that has “pink air” and where “no one has a head”.
Arguably one of the more surreal interpretations of an extraterrestrial interaction in rock music, the sinister appropriation of the ‘Peter Gunn Theme’ for the guitar licks along with the Farfisa organs whirling in the background give it an air of mystery befitting the song’s subject. As strange as it might sound, it perfectly introduces the listener to the ethereal madness that the Athens, Georgia natives created during their career, combining chintzy ‘50s fashion with space-age futuristic visions.
Guerilla Toss – ‘Betty Dreams of Green Men’
While science-fiction themes are prevalent throughout large amounts of Guerilla Toss’ 2017 album GT Ultra, it’s on the album opener where they’re most explicit and make reference to another real-life incident. The Betty in the song’s title is most likely a reference to Betty Hill, who, along with her husband Barney, claimed to have been abducted by a UFO in the state of New Hampshire and provided several detailed accounts of her experiences being probed for medical experiences by the aliens on board the ship.
The other songs on this list only throw in the sounds of the cosmos sparingly, keeping their music relatively palatable to our untrained earthling ears, but Guerilla Toss have never been ones to keep things straightforward. Mixing disco, no wave and psychedelic pop together in the space of one track, the Baltimore group are as bonkers as you’d expect alien life to be. If they do indeed make music like this in space, abduct me now.
