Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of 'The War of the Worlds

Mars is incapable of sustaining life.

Our efforts to maintain the biosphere are exhausted.

The water tables and temperature

decrease annually as does our population.

The only consequential course of action is the conquest

and occupation of Earth, our young, sun ward neighbour.

Earth is abundant with life and resources are bountiful.

The environment will seem uncomfortable but not inhibitive.

The problem is of course the humans.

They have developed primitive intelligence.

Yet, their society is structured

around perpetual conquest and conflict.

A rapid offensive to their social and economic heart,

should prevent any significant opposition.

The means and methods for this attack are already being realised.

A large scale hydrogen accelerator will be constructed.

This will launch suspension pods carrying the assault forces.

We have not had the need for such destructive weaponry in over 5,000 years

but modifications to our current technology will take place,

and should prove adequate to defeat the inferior human defenses.

No one would have believed, in the last years of the 19th century,

that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space.

No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized

as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm

and multiply in a drop of water.

Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets.

And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours

regarded this earth with envious eyes,

and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.

At midnight, on the 12th of August, a huge mass of luminous gas

erupted from Mars and sped towards Earth.

Across two hundred million miles of void, invisibly hurtling towards us,

came the first of the missiles

that were to bring so much calamity to Earth.

As I watched, there was another jet of gas.

It was another missile, starting on its way.

And that's how it was for the next ten nights.

A flare, spurting out from Mars.

Bright green, drawing a green mist behind it;

A beautiful, but somehow disturbing sight.

Ogilby, the astronomer, assured me we were in no danger.

He was convinced there could be no living thing

on that remote, forbidding planet.

Then came the night the first missile approached Earth.

It was thought to be an ordinary falling star,

but next day there was a huge crater in the middle of the common,

and Ogilby came to examine what lay there.

A cylinder, thirty yards across, glowing hot, with faint sounds

of movement coming from within.

Suddenly the top began moving: Rotating, unscrewing;

And Ogilby feared there was a man inside trying to escape.

He rushed to the cylinder but the intense heat stopped him

before he could burn himself on the metal.

It seems totally incredible to me now that everyone spent that evening

as though it were just like any other.

From the railway station came the sound of shunting trains,

ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance.

It all seemed so safe and tranquil.

Next morning a crowd gathered on the common,

hypnotized by the unscrewing of the cylinder.

Two feet of shining screw projected when suddenly,

the lid fell off.

Two luminous, disk-like eyes appeared above the rim.

A huge rounded bulk, larger than a bear, rose up slowly,

glistening like wet leather.

Its lip-less mouth quivered and slathered, and snakelike tentacles

writhed as the clumsy body heaved and pulsated.

A few young men crept closer to the pit.

A tall funnel rose and an invisible ray of heat leapt from man to man,

and there was a bright glare as each was instantly turned to fire.

Every tree and bush became a mass of flames at the touch of this

savage, unearthly heat ray.

People clawed their way off the common, and I ran too.

I felt I was being toyed with, that when I was on the very verge

of safety this mysterious death would leap after me and strike me down.

At last I reached Maybury Hill, and in the dim coolness of my home

I wrote an account for my newspaper

before I sank into a restless, haunted sleep.

I awoke to alien sounds of hammering from the pit

and hurried to the railway station to buy the paper.

Around me, the daily routine of life, working, eating, sleeping,

was continuing serenely as it had for countless years.

On Horsell Common, the Martians continued

hammering and stirring, sleepless,

indefatigable, at work on the machines they were making.

Now and again a light like the beam of a warship's searchlight

swept the common, and the heat ray was ready to follow.

In the afternoon, a company of soldiers came through

and deployed along the edge of the common to form a cordon.

That evening, there was a violent crash and I realized with horror

that my home was within range of the Martian's heat ray.

At dawn, a falling star with a trail of green mist

landed with a flash like summer lightning.

This was the second cylinder.

The hammering from the pit and the pounding of guns grew louder.

My fear rose at the sound of someone creeping into the house.

Then I saw it was a young artilleryman,

weary, streaked with blood and dirt.

- Anyone here? - Come in. Here, drink this.

- Thank you. - What's happened?

They wiped us out. Hundreds dead, maybe thousands.

- The heat ray? - The Martians.

They were inside the hoods of machines they'd made,

massive metal things on legs. Giant machines that walked.

They attacked us. They wiped us out.

- Machines? - Fighting machines,

picking up men and bashing them against trees.

Just hunks of metal, but they knew exactly what they were doing.

Hmm. There was another cylinder came last night.

Yes. Yes, it looked bound for London.

London! Carrie! I hadn't dreamed there could be danger

to Carrie and her father, so many miles away.

I must go to London at once.

And me, got to report to headquarters,

if there's anything left of it.

At Byfleet, we came upon an inn, but it was deserted.

Is everybody dead?

Not everybody, look...

Six cannons with gunners standing by.

Bows and arrows against the lightning.

- Hmm. - They haven't seen the heat ray yet.

We hurried along the road to Weybridge.

Suddenly, there was a heavy explosion.

The Ground heaved, windows shattered

and gusts of smoke erupted into the air.

Look! There they are! What did I tell you!

Quickly, one after the other, four of the fighting machines appeared.

Monstrous tripods, higher than the tallest steeple,

striding over the pine trees and smashing them,

walking engines of glittering metal.

Each carried a huge funnel and I realized with horror

that I'd seen this awful thing before.

A fifth machine appeared on the far bank.

It raised itself to full height,

flourished the funnel high in the air,

and the ghostly terrible heat ray struck the town.

As it struck, all five fighting machines exulted,

emitting deafening howls which roared like thunder.

The six guns we had seen now fired simultaneously,

decapitating a fighting machine.

The Martian inside the hood was slain, splashed to the four winds,

and the body, nothing now but an intricate device of metal,

went whirling to destruction.

As the other monsters advanced, people ran away blindly,

the artilleryman among them, but I jumped into the water

and hid until forced up to breathe.

Now the guns spoke again, but this time the heat ray

sent them to oblivion.

With a white flash the heat ray swept across the river.

Scalded, half blinded and agonized, I staggered through leaping,

hissing water towards the shore.

I fell helplessly in full sight of the Martians, expecting nothing but death.

The foot of a fighting machine came down close to my head,

then lifted again as the four Martians carried away the debris

of their fallen comrade,

and I realized that by a miracle,

I had escaped.

For three days I fought my way along roads packed with refugees,

the homeless, burdened with boxes

and bundles containing their valuables.

All that was of value to me was in London.

By the time I reached their little red brick house,

Carrie and her father were gone.

Fire suddenly leapt from house to house.

The population panicked and ran, and I was swept along with them,

aimless and lost without Carrie.

Finally, I headed eastward for the ocean

and my only hope of survival: A boat out of England.

As I hastened through Covent Garden, Blackfriars and Billingsgate,

more and more people joined the painful exodus.