Songs that predicted the future, either intentional or not

In 1977 Be Bop Deluxe recorded the song 'Superenigmatix (Lethal Appliances For The Home With Everything)' on the album Drastic Plastic. In the song, Bill Nelson imagines a world in which the everyday appliances in your home ('there's one in the TV') monitor your activity, watch you night and day, and try and control your behaviour through 'orders and slogans'.



Superenigmatix

Superenigmatix, there's one hiding in the attic
And it's getting all ecstatic cause it goes on automatic
When the lights go out.
There's one in the TV and it's waiting there to please me
And I've got to take it easy cause I know that it can see me
When the lights go out.
Inside, outside, watching me both night and day
Sometimes I wish I could make them go away.
Sometimes when I'm dreaming, I awake to find I'm screaming
Cause they've taken all the meaning from the book that I was reading
When the lights went out.
I know it seems outspoken but I'd love to see them broken
No more orders, no more slogans, no more keeping my eyes open
When the lights go out.
Inside, outside, watching me both night and day
Sometimes I wish I could make them go away.
Superenigmatix, always amateur dramatic
And they're trying to get me at it
But I think I'm going to kick them in

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Man, I'm glad THAT was just a paranoid fantasy! Can you imagine having to worry about the technology in your home monitoring you and trying to influence your behaviour?

Never happen, thankfully. Has anyone seen Sarah Connor, btw - my laptop says it needs to know...

 

Yeah. Pete and Al Gore.

 

How did that predict the future? Iran had called the US "the great Satan" a decade earlier...

 

Well maybe the “warning sign” was 9/11....

 

Methinks this is a stretch!

 

Appearantly Prince predicted 9-11 in a jam session / after party gig in Utrecht in 1998:

 

" We got snythetic food that nearly tastes real and a LITTLE BLUE PILL that makes you feel a whole lot better when you get out of bed..."

'I'm A Stranger Here ' --- Five Man Electrical Band ( 1970 ).

 

Well, anything that “appears to predict the future” is a stretch really....

 

Yeah, we agree there!

 

In essence, I feel like we're already there...

 

Yes! Entered this thread looking for this. Pete's Lifehouse concept seems to predict the Internet revolution and societal impact. I hadn't seen this article you linked. Going to read it now.

 

Buffalo Springfield: 'For What It's Worth'

It was difficult for us Brits - and particularly young Brits (I was 12 in 1967) - to fully (or even begin to) comprehend the national mood in the US at the time but the song was picked up on by many British bands.

My first exposure to it was by a band called "Art" on the Island compilation/sampler album 'You Can All Join In' (Released in Spring 68, I think)

With hindsight it would be easy to pin this song to any number of events that back then still lay in the future. But - given the song's provenance - it becomes hugely difficult not to see the lyrics as being prescient of and linked with the Kent State protests and shootings , that were 3 years off at that point.

Stop, children - whats that sound ...

Best Wishes,
David

 

Long before Katrina

 

Cat Stevens - Where Do The Children Play?

 

Perhaps Mideast Vacation would fit better?

 

Every song by Gil Scott-Heron

 

Texas sharpshooter fallacy - Wikipedia

 

That’s one of the best ones totally forgot about Dead Mans Curve, how eerie is that?

 

Call me weird... but after watching what happened in NYC on 9/11
- On Lamb Lies Down, there's a song right after the title track -

Fly on a Windshield:

"There's something solid forming in the air,
And the wall of death is lowered in Times Square.
No-one seems to care,
They carry on as if nothing was there.

Rael starts to run away towards Columbus Circle. Each time he dares to take a look, the wall has moved another block. At the moment when he thinks he's maintaining his distance from the wall, the wind blows hard and cold slowing down his speed. The wind increases, dries the wet street and picks up the dust off the surface, throwing it into Rael's face.

More and more dirt is blown up and it begins to settle on Rael's skin and clothes, making a solid layered coat that brings him gradually to a terrified stillness.
A sitting duck.

The wind is blowing harder now,
Blowing dust into my eyes.
The dust settles on my skin,
Making a crust I cannot move in
And I'm hovering like a fly, waiting for the windshield on the freeway."

 

Not that gender fluidity was a new concept in 1984, but this forward-thinking song by the Replacements seems rather prescient with its vision of a future in which gender-identified items like “urine stalls” and “kewpie dolls” would be mocked and discarded in favor of “unisex evolution.” Who’d have thunk that the rowdy ol’ ‘Mats would become champions of the transgender community. Then again, Paul Westerberg always had a thoughtful, sensitive side, so maybe not too surprising.

 

Everything Is Broken by Bob Dylan. Came my way via KWS. Sounds like modern times.

 

Whisky bottles
Brand new cars
Oak tree your in my way
The only reason I can quote that is because a friend would always say those lines when he'd hit a tree with his golf ball. I still get a kick out of that.

 

Yeah, "the smell of death's around you", right before the big plane crash happened. Creepy and unsettling to say the least. Wasn't this their last hit song from the original group?

 

I believe it was the last with Ronnie and most of the original members. They did have some lineup changes over the years, though. After a couple of uneven records, Steve Gaines had breathed some life back into that band as a song writer and guitar player. Street Survivors was the only album he appeared on. The initial release of that record had the band surrounded in flames on the front cover, so besides the song, that touched up photo on the cover was a bit prophetic, too. The flames were removed on all subsequent pressings of that album after the crash. A lot of talent went down on that plane.

 

In 1971, Rod Stewart apparently predicted the future of wireless communication (and possibly the rise of Uber and Lyft) when he growled “get your cell phone” at his groupie when he was ready for her to leave.