Thursday Tune - Jeff Waynes Musical Version of The War of the Worlds

I'm cheating a little in this week's Thursday Tune (and only the second week as well!), the idea of the feature was to pick specific songs, but instead I'm going to pick an album that has been a favourite of mine for many years and if I chose specific songs it would fill the feature for many weeks.

The Song

Picking a song to represent this marvelous album is a tricky choice as there's quite a few classic tunes on there. In the end I picked Thundershild as it represents the mood of the story well and features an old ironclad, it's a song of bravery and loss that has me singing along every time :-)

The artwork for this in the album is also fantastic (in fact the artwork generally is pretty cool). I've included a YouTube link to the song, but if you haven't already heard the album yet then you owe it to yourself to buy yourself a copy right now.

Speaking of which...

The Album

Click on the image to purchase from Amazon

Picking a song to feature might have been difficult but selecting this as an album to talk about was a no-brainer, I've loved this album since the days of a misspent youth and along with Pink Floyd's The Wall (they will feature in a future Thursday Tune) this was my listened to album for a long time.

This album has eberything going for it, the story is great (I re-read the book recently and had the songs playing in my head while doing so) with characters that really come to life in the songs. The range of voices really makes it one stand out and Richard Burton's narration is simply superb.

While it's very much a product of its time iand therefore comes with a generous helping of cheese that just adds to its charm. I've also seen the live show and it was incredible, it's a lot of fun and just being there with the giant war machine was excellent. You can get the show on DVD and Blu-ray (in fact I haven't seen the latest one with Liam Neeson so I've just ordered myself a copy, you can do the same here), but you should really see it live, they seem to do a new set of dates each year so keep your eyes open for them.

I have to say that the giant floating Richard Burton face was a bit freaky though :-)

About the Band

The show has seen a number of cast changes over the years and I found it interesting watching the live show with different singers (although some were still there like Justin Haywood) and what new aspects they brought to the role. As I've already said I haven't seen the latest version with Liam Neeson, but I've heard good things about it and it's on it's way to me!

No matter who has been involved the show has the same fantastic story and music, an album that I've listened to thousands of times and will no doubt listen to as many times more.