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Voyager 1: The coolest Jukebox in the world….
Written by Jimmy
Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is about to leave our Universe. It carries a ‘DVD’ of great music and photographs, and wonderful sights and sounds of earth. The committee that selected all the contents was led by Carl Sagan. First, the bad news. There’s a message from then UN chief Kurt Waldheim who was later found to have unsavory Nazi ties. Hope the Borg don’t get too excited about that one. The other bad news is no nude shots on this one – there was a big controversy with the ‘DVD’ for the Pioneer space craft which had a nude shot of a man and a woman. I guess we’re a bit worried about the aliens getting all ‘American Pie’ on us and thinking earth is some big ‘band camp.
But the good news is the committee did a hell of a nice job on music, including probably the most amazing true blues song every written: Blind Willie Johnson’s Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground. Listen:
Here’s Robert0 Luti covering the song – he was described by Playing for Change:
‘How extraordinarily cool is it that a committee process that was so corrupted to stop nude photographs could also be so magical to include this song. And I’m particularly happy to know that when the aliens come it will be for our music and not our boobs and balls. After all, its all about the music.
Jimmy