"Space Truckin
'" is a song by English hard rock band
Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in London in 1968. They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal music, heavy metal and modern hard rock, although their musical style has varied throughout their career. Originally for ...
. It is the seventh and final track on the ''
Machine Head'' album and its lyrics talk of space travel.
Guitarist
Ritchie Blackmore
Richard Hugh Blackmore (born 14 April 1945) is an English lead guitarist. He was a founding member and the guitarist of Deep Purple, one of the pioneering bands of hard rock. After leaving Deep Purple in 1975, Blackmore formed the band Rainbow ...
claims in ''
Classic Albums: Deep Purple – The Making of Machine Head'' that the song composition started with the half-step riffs in the refrain, which were inspired by the
theme music
Theme music is a musical composition which is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at ...
for the ''
Batman
Batman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on M ...
'' TV programme composed by
Neal Hefti. Blackmore asked singer
Ian Gillan
Ian Gillan (born 19 August 1945) is an English singer who is best known as the lead singer and lyricist for the rock band Deep Purple. He is known for his powerful and wide-ranging singing voice.
Initially influenced by Elvis Presley, Gillan ...
if he could write any lyrics over the riff, and the rest of the song evolved from there.
Live performances
When it was first performed live, the band appended an instrumental that was originally part of the song "
Mandrake Root" from their
first album but gradually evolved into a showcase for
Jon Lord's
Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...
and Ritchie Blackmore's
guitar solo
A guitar solo is a melody, melodic passage, instrumental section (music), section, or entire piece of music, pre-written (or improvised) to be played on a classical guitar, classical, electric guitar, electric, or acoustic guitar. In 20th and ...
s. This usually took the length of the overall song to over twenty minutes, and it was always performed as the last number of the main set. A good example of this arrangement can be found on the ''
Made in Japan'' album, wherein Blackmore also quotes the "cello" solo of "Fools" off ''
Fireball''.
Jon Lord played his solo through a
ring modulator or played some of it on an
ARP synthesizer. Meanwhile, Ritchie Blackmore usually split the guitar solo into two halves, a quiet section with just drums, then a loud section with the full band. The second half was often when Blackmore would smash his guitar, play it with his feet or throw it into the air. One of the most infamous incidents where that happened was at the
California Jam festival in 1974, where he dropped one guitar over the edge of the stage, smashed a second against a TV camera, then set his amplifier on fire, which then subsequently exploded.
When Deep Purple reformed in 1984, this extended arrangement was reworked, and later included snippets of other songs.
On the remastered version of their 1982 album ''
Live in London'' (recorded in 1974), there is a 31-minute-long live version of the song. It consists of a lot of improvising from the band members and in one part of the song they play the main riff from "
Child in Time".
Cover versions
* British heavy metal band
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden are an English Heavy metal music, heavy metal band formed in Leyton, East London, in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris (musician), Steve Harris. Although fluid in the early years of the band, the line-up for most ...
contributed a cover of "Space Truckin'" for the tribute album ''
Re-Machined: A Tribute to Deep Purple's Machine Head'' to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Deep Purple's 1972 release ''Machine Head''.
* American thrash metal band
Overkill did a cover of "Space Truckin'" for their 1999 cover-album,
Coverkill
''Coverkill'' is a cover album released by thrash metal band Overkill (band), Overkill in 1999. The album consists of cover songs by artists that influenced the band, including Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Motörhead, Kiss (band), Kiss, Judas Pr ...
.
* American guitarist
Ace Frehley
Paul Daniel "Ace" Frehley (, ; born April 27, 1951) is an American musician who was the original lead guitarist, occasional lead vocalist and founding member of the rock band Kiss (band), Kiss. He invented the persona of The Spaceman (a.k.a. ...
has covered "Space Truckin'" for his 2020 album ''
Origins Vol. 2''.
In pop culture
*The song appeared in the film ''
Lords of Dogtown
''Lords of Dogtown'' is a 2005 American biographical drama film that captures the rise of skateboarding culture in 1970s Santa Monica and Venice, California. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke and written by Stacy Peralta, a key figure in the ska ...
'', the documentary ''Warren Miller's Dynasty'' and the video game ''
Guitar Hero: Van Halen''.
*The 1997 remix of the song was featured in the first and last episodes of ''
Ash vs Evil Dead''.
*"Space Truckin'" played in orbit as a wake-up call for the Red Team on Flight Day 3 of the crew of
STS-107; it was specially played for Mission Specialist
Kalpana Chawla
Kalpana Chawla (March 17, 1962 – February 1, 2003) was an American astronaut and aerospace engineer who was the first woman of Indian origin to fly to space. Chawla expressed an interest in aerospace engineering from an early age and took engi ...
, who was later one of the seven crew killed in the
Space Shuttle Columbia
Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' (OV-102) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the Columbia Rediviva, first American ship to circumnavigate the globe, and the Columbia (personification) ...
disaster
A disaster is an event that causes serious harm to people, buildings, economies, or the environment, and the affected community cannot handle it alone. '' Natural disasters'' like avalanches, floods, earthquakes, and wildfires are caused by na ...
. A fan of the band, she traded e-mails with group members while in space. Guitarist
Steve Morse, vocalist
Ian Gillan
Ian Gillan (born 19 August 1945) is an English singer who is best known as the lead singer and lyricist for the rock band Deep Purple. He is known for his powerful and wide-ranging singing voice.
Initially influenced by Elvis Presley, Gillan ...
, bass guitarist
Roger Glover, drummer
Ian Paice and keyboardist
Don Airey
Donald Smith Airey (born 21 June 1948) is an English musician. He came to prominence as the keyboardist of the rock band Rainbow during 1979–1982. He has been the keyboardist of Deep Purple, the band from which Rainbow was a spinoff, since 2 ...
were recording ''
Bananas
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – berry (botany), botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa (genus), Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called pla ...
'' when the disaster occurred. Chawla had taken three CDs onboard Columbia: Deep Purple's landmark 1972 album ''
Machine Head'', 1996's ''
Purpendicular'' and
Rainbow
A rainbow is an optical phenomenon caused by refraction, internal reflection and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a continuous spectrum of light appearing in the sky. The rainbow takes the form of a multicoloured circular ...
's 1979 album ''
Down to Earth'' (Glover and Airey were members of Rainbow at the time). To honor her, Deep Purple closed ''Bananas'' with "Contact Lost".
*"Basically, this is '
Smoke on the Water
"Smoke on the Water" is a song by English rock band Deep Purple, released on their 1972 studio album '' Machine Head''. The song's lyrics are based on true events, chronicling the 1971 fire at Montreux Casino in Montreux, Switzerland. It is ...
', but in space," remarked
Tim Wheeler of
Ash. "All Deep Purple's songs seem to be about being in a gang and, true to form, this is too – but, this time, they're intergalactic travellers. The lyrics are utter nonsense, but it doesn't matter. It's just a real stomper of a song with a great riff. I like
Jon Lord's organ sound. It's so distorted, it's like a guitar."
Personnel
*
Ian Gillan
Ian Gillan (born 19 August 1945) is an English singer who is best known as the lead singer and lyricist for the rock band Deep Purple. He is known for his powerful and wide-ranging singing voice.
Initially influenced by Elvis Presley, Gillan ...
– vocals
*
Ritchie Blackmore
Richard Hugh Blackmore (born 14 April 1945) is an English lead guitarist. He was a founding member and the guitarist of Deep Purple, one of the pioneering bands of hard rock. After leaving Deep Purple in 1975, Blackmore formed the band Rainbow ...
– guitar
*
Roger Glover – bass guitar
*
Jon Lord – keyboards
*
Ian Paice – drums, percussion
References
{{Authority control
Deep Purple songs
1972 songs
Songs written by Ian Gillan
Songs written by Roger Glover
Songs written by Ritchie Blackmore
Songs written by Jon Lord
Songs written by Ian Paice
Songs about spaceflight
List songs