BOB CALVERT/HAWKWIND: The Genesis of 'Spirit of the Age'

OK, I admit it, I am more than slightly geeky.

This has proved to be to my advantage in my twin careers of Cryptozoologist and Rock Music Historian. Wherever possible I like to dot the I's and cross the T's and I get mildly obsessed about it until I do.

The other day my friend and colleague Graham Inglis wrote in passing something to the effect that he was surprised to see that some Hawkwind lyrics had appeared in Robert Calvert's Centigrade 232 book of poems that we remastered and published for Gonzo a couple of months back.

I asked for some details. He just gunted and got on with the serious business of feeding our colony of Rio Cauca Caecilians, but I kept on at him over the next few days, and eventually - with very bad grace, because he is a private man and does not like being hustled - he plonked this on my desk:

"Spirit of the Age" (SOTA) first appeared in Hawkwind's set in Autumn 1971, in the form of the poem, "The Starfarer's Despatch". This is the poem that laments that "your father refused to sign the forms to freeze you," and concludes with a description of how the android replica is playing up. There's no mention of spirits, whether of the age or otherwise, nor anything about clones or telepathic men.

Years passed, and the next Hawkwind lineup to do any sort of SOTA was the post-Lemmy / post-Turner one, in late 1976. The now-well-known refrain of:

That's the Spirit of the Age...
It's the Spirit of the Age...

(or slight variations on that theme) had its first run-out. However, the main lyrics saw a drastic change. "The Starfarer's Despatch" was dropped, and Calvert instead sings about "the shape of things to come," and scientists "holding test-tubes up to the light." I don't know if this material is from any Calvert poem or whether he penned it specifically for Hawkwind's SOTA. Anyone got any ideas on this?

A year later, and the much-acclaimed "Quark, Strangeness and Charm" album was recorded. SOTA had another massive overhaul, in that most of the 1976 lyrics were ditched, apart from one verse and the refrain. However, "The Starfarer's Despatch" returns to the Hawkwind playlist as Verse 2 of SOTA, and then "The Clone's Poem" as Verse 3 finally introduces clones and telepathic men to the song.

"The Clone's Poem" was also published that year (1977) in Calvert's "Centigrade 232" book of poems, two poems after "The Starfarer's Despatch". I wonder if Bob had written it that year, for Hawkwind, or whether it was much older.

The SOTA recording that actually made it onto the 1977 album (as the opening track) fades in after the first verse. The general fanbase thus didn't get to hear the full version (and its references to test-tubes) until 2009, when Cherry Red re-released the Quark album with a bonus disk of alternative or full-length tracks.

Live performances of SOTA from 1977 onwards have (so far as I know, invariably) followed the vinyl format and omitted that first verse. That is, "The Starfarer's Despatch" and "The Clone's Poem" now supply all of the non-chorus content.

I don't know about you, but I found that really interesting. It is my spacerock Easter Egg hunt for this holiday weekend. Slainte...


SOTA (Hawkfest 2010)


ROBERT CALVERT: Starfarer's despatch


ROBERT CALVERT: The Clone's Poem