Added: 4 years ago
From: xwsftassell
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  • i have 7 different of this song

  • Granddaddy to knights of cydonia, truly epic :D

  • This is where "Knights of Cydonia" comes from. The vibrato guitar and drum beat in that song is very similar to this one.

  • dunno? but david put the spiders to bed?

  • i never knew the rhythm guitarist from this band is matthew bellamy's dad

  • fantastic piece of music

  • Matt bellamys daddy! Woop!

  • That melody always comes in my mind

  • Heard this on an old tape my dad had. Yes a little casette tape can you believe that :D

  • Great memories of my childhood in the early sixties, I am now 56 and still love this song.

  • Absolutely most fantastic nostalgic hit of the 60's,memories flood back whenever i hear this.

    Keep your modern rave music.

  • absolute class... masterpiece...

  • I think this was the first brit no.1 in usa ....

  • @pennypacker93 Yeah it was, first British band to hit #1 in America. Take that Beatles.

  • where is Joe Meek?

  • @TheMimifur sadly he has since passed away as well as Heinz Burt

  • Heh heh... I don't get it.

  • Boaaah...da läufts mir kalt den Rücken runter....Wahnsinnsmusik!!

  • Had this once .........:(

  • Lol VERY knights of cydonia

  • This song remingds me of Knights of Cydonia by Muse. I wonder why...... Oh wait, thats it!

  • The first record I ever heard in stereo. Always has a special place in my memory. STILL one of the best instrumentals. Bring back the 60's

  • Matt Bellamy's Dad!!! WOOOO

  • I've arranged a new version of Telstar. Please check it out: THE DUELLING PIANOS Telstar

  • sad fukas!! this is class..

  • Horribly!

  • I can't put my finger on it but it sound similar to Muse... In some way

  • good song

    where is another version

    before this 1962?

  • @MichaelHansenFUN No other version,as far as I know. This was celebrating a wonderful new satelite.

  • class

  • IF EVER THERE WAS A RECORD THAT HAS STOOD THE TEST OF TIME FOR NEARLY 50 YEARS - IT HAS TO BE THIS ONE. WHEN IT FIRST CAME OUT IN THE EARLY 60'S. I COULDNT AFFORD TO BUY RECORDS (WOULD HAVE BEEDN ABOUT 9 YEARS OLD AT THE TIME) THOUGH HAVE IT ON A COUPLE OF 1960'S COMPILATION ALBUMS. JOIE MEEK WHO PRODUCED AND WROTE THIS SONG ALSO PRODUCED THE HONEYCOMBS FIRST"HIT "HAVE I THE RIGHT"

  • BEST INSTRUMENTAL EVER

  • Does anyone have a copy of the lyrics?

  • @HeartoftheDragonColo Lyrics? What lyrics? I have never heard any singing to this. It was THE instrumental hit of '62.

  • I wanna cover this soon!!

  • @aimanaimanaimanhaziq asshole! me first!...=_=...XD, imma cover the drums..:D...wanna merge?

  • @thecitizenme okay babe XD

  • @aimanaimanaimanhaziq again, asshole...=_=.....XDD

  • I remeber playing this in 1962 on my cheap record player. The scratching sounds are how it was.

  • Telstar, the theme song of the Space Age, which began Oct. 4, 1957 with the Russian artificial satellite Sputnik and decades of space travel.

  • this

    music

    is made

    for angel

    that

    here remain on of the earth ;-)

    questa musica é stata composta per quegli Angeli ché sono rimasti sulla Terra ;-)

    MAKE LOVE NOT WAR

  • Wonderful! has there ever been a more optimistic and exuberant yet at the same time hubristic piece of music ever recorded that was so toatlly in tune with the Zietgiest of its moment????

  • Some movie-of-the-week use to use this in the intro, i swear.

  • Have similarities with KOC of MUSE

  • @gondarbounty you know that the guitarist from the tornadoes is the lead singer/guitarist from muse's father right?

  • totally fab i still have all my old records love the scratches and scuffs at the start.

    forget cds play the old ones......

  • Oh yes; Rhiendahlen in 1963 any other service brats about?

    Dancing in the Officers Club at JHQ those were the days!!!

  • Electro before electro existed.

  • There's only one word to describe this song "Fan-bloody-tastic"

  • Just imagine hearing this for the first time on the radio. It literally took your breath away. What was that?Then waiting to hear it again. The most imaganitive record ever produced. Who was it? what was it? It is still an out of this world sound that you could never copy in a million light years. Hip hop? Hop off.

  • Best song ever

  • Absolutely great track! This makes my day!

  • Worthy of No 1 in any era.

  • check out modern rock group MUSE  its the son of TORNADOES GUITARIST

  • This captured the spiirt of the early sixties: the austerity years of the fifties were behind us, the welfare state was in full swing; there was nearly full emplyment; medical advances were banishing many diseases to history; slums were being replaced by new housing and science promised to be our servant. Little did we know that in no more than a decade it would all turn sour.

    I can`t imagine now music be written about an Iphone.

  • Sucks

  • Joe Meek heard sounds in his head & since he was not an actual "musician", hummed them into a recorder & had Geoff Goddard or whoever was handy transcribe them into music. Maybe that's one of the reasons they sound so different from everything else then OR now. His productions always sound, at least to me, a strange mix of futuristic AND vintage simultaneously - TOTALLY UNIQUE! You would never find anything anywhere close in today's sterile digitized world - you'd be foolish to disagree.

  • I can see where matt got the idea of knights of cydonia now

  • @chibishade yeah, i can hear it in this song too.

  • absolute classic....

  • Matt Bellamy's daddyyy! :L This song freakin owns anyway <3

  • I hear Blondie's "Dreaming".

  • God...this heavenly thing, this heart-tearing melody always riveted me to the floor when it came on the radio...it IS sad, it IS evocative, it conveys the Love of Angels, Telstar, play for infinity and into worlds beyond....

  • I rushed out and bought this record when it first came out, of course we all rode horses back then and there were no colours, just black and white everywhere and bin men actually took your rubbish away without a formal letter of introduction from the pope. Was this Ken Freeman playing a Clavioline with the Tornados? If it was, we're hearing the forerunner of the Freeman string synthesizer. Anyone remember the band "Second City Sound"? I think that was Ken Freeman too.

  • A great record! A sound paradise. Believe it or not - I can hear "Love will tear us apart "

    influenced by this simple diatonic melody RIP Joe Meek

  • I had an original copy of this single with much less crackle, but I lent it to Mike Scotney and never got it back!

  • i remember being a kid in the early 60s and seeing that sattelite cross the sky.. like a fast moving star. it was a big deal back then, and when the song came out . .woah!. .so futuristic! im sure it inspired 1000s of musical careers, still a cool song today.

  • @bigratfink65 YES!! One of my dad's friends stopped in and everybody went outside to watch it pass on a warm clear summer night.

  • Aaahhhhh, My favorite.

  • Wow! I feel really old cuz I remember when the first satellite was launched and we were glued to the radio listening to these scratchy sounds of Telstar and thinking it was the most exotic thing that ever happened! The needle sounds on this 45rpm were what we heard every time we played a "vinyl"---had to put coins on the needle arm after while to keep it from skipping out of the grooves. Wonderful memories of innocent times. :)

  • Thanks for this, the Tornados where fantastic.

  • This should have been the theme song to the original STAR TREK TV series back in 1966, my opinion! Has a "retro-futuristic" feel to it. I have an original 45 rpm copy of this as an American release on London Records. Transferred it to digital and downloaded it onto my MP3 player, and WOW!!!

  • A pop masterpiece, and harbinger of the British Invasion.

  • amazing amazing !

    ik was nog een jochie een klein jochie die afhankelijk was van de stemming van mijn ma

    plotseling komt uit een raam deze muziek de muziek die mij aan het huilen brengt zo mooi zo dichtbij ... zo vol verlangen naar .....

  • i get shivers everytime i listen to it. i live on holloway rd and pass joes old studio quite often, i look up and think of the magic/madness that happened there in the 60's..a total engineering legend.

  • Wow, there's some crackle on that record! Good record nevertheless. Brilliant in fact. Five stars.

  • One of my all-time favorite songs. It went to #1 in the U.S. Dec.22, 1962, and stayed there for 3 weeks.

  • This has pride of place on my old jukebox - a classic from that genius Joe Meek.

  • Great song. No.1 in 1962.

  • Oh boy,1962 that´s just a few weeks ago, innit?

    Telstar was the first TV satellite that gave us intercontinental TV reception. Some sane people still agree the record was smashing but the TV we get isn´t worth the money spent. ;)

  • Yeah, TV is crap. Sometimes I think everything went downhill for the human race when they introduced electric lighting.

  • xws, I remember when Germany had two (no typo - two) TV channels and they had what we called "streetcleaners" - all of Germany was a ghost town because everybody sat gloed to the tube. Nowadays, with 24/7 manure on fifty channels - your TV being on the fritz is like going on holiday.

    And "music" on radio...burgle my house. Steal my money, my girlfriend, my toothbrush, you´re welcome - but touch my LP rack and I´ll introduce you to my shotgun. ;)

  • Yeah, although I doubt if a burglar would even recognise what an LP was. My brother's children refer to records as "those giant-sized CD's", even Technics have stopped making 1200's and 1210's. Incidentally, this copy of Telstar comes to you c/o a Technics 1210 MKII.

  • yeah true, but from the goverments perspective it doesnt get much better than international brainwashing.. i mean broadcasting XD.

  • I just took delivery of an original pressing of this.

    An absolute stunning record.

  • I think the pressing on the orig. Decca "Telstar" is a work of art in itself. The loudest record you've ever heard on British vinyl. Whoever did the mastering on that was a flippin' genius.

  • @xwsftassell That was Joe Meeks trademark, he liked it LOUD and powerfull, loads of bass and everythning else too !. One of his first records as producer at Abbey Road was Badpenny Blues by trad-jazz man Humphrey Littleton; he put so much emphasis onto the piano mix that Humph etc hated it, but it was an unlikely huge hit record.

  • @RockinRedRover Sure, yeah. It's also been noted that the piano sound on BPB was remarkably similar to the one that popped up later on The Beatles "Lady Madonna". I suspect (although I don't actually know), that George Martin may have been something of a Meek-watcher, as his early Sixties production on "Boot Hill" by The Federals, was also uncannily Joe-like.

  • Is it weird that I'm 28 and I've got this and Heinz's 'Just Like Eddie' on my ipod? Both terrific tracks IMO.

  • Great song. No other words to describe it.

  • I don't know if you sense a link between this lovely melody and all that I have described, but sometimes when I hear it my heart hurts metaphorically for the days before my parents made me promise I'd stop playing that Christmas Side/Dark Side game.

  • Well, our world was situated above the Earth and the enemies' (the Dark Side's) was situated below the Earth, just like Heaven and Hell (though I'm not religious). I drew a picture of the three different solar systems - this one, my one, and the Dark Side's, from an outter space angle, on Microsoft Paint.

  • Telstar is a part of me. I'm a dreamy and spaced out person (that's probably why I don't concentrate well in lessons and need a lot of support), I think too much and worry too much, I'm over-imaginative, I love the Swinging Sixties, I become very caught up in my own worlds - and one of these many worlds was a planet belonging to an entire solar system which I ruled with my siblings, and then there was the enemies' solar system that looked from an outter space angle identical to ours ...

  • I know everone says Knights of Cydonia is like a continuation of this song, but I feel like Starlight might also be

  • classic ,classic track

  • Best instrumental ever made-brilliant-this song will be remembered when the X Factor" stars" are long forgotten!!

  • This brings back memories of living at home. My mum used to play this on the record player. I can picture it now! She never has really grown out of the old stuff. Mind you, neither have I!

  • Excellent brings back memories of my junior infant school days every year it was played at the end of our Christmas party we all loved it.

  • absolutely fantastic piece of music, every note has me in awe inspired delight

  • This is my theme music next time I need one!!

  • That's a great line...gonna steal it and use it sometime.

  • Matt Bellamy's dads band from Muse. Wow.! I am inspired somehow! Ha!

  • he was the rythm guitarist in the tornadoes, george bellamy

    muse's knights of cydonia is a tribute to telstar

  • Really? How is that?

    Do you mean the tune being played by Matt on the guitar that goes with the first couple verses? I can see that.

    That song man is more. A tribute, and a freaking message! My question is: Are their knights of cydonia from Mars seeking revenge for what we've done?

  • the knights of cydonia have recovered a cd which contains a greater purpose than mankind which has become tainted by lust shown by the cowboy licking the girl, to put the cd into effect they need the girl

    ''the pure sole'' so its kinda like jesus if ya think about it

    and whilst we r on t' subject cydonia is where the rover landed on mars i think its on mars neway

    so yeh ne more questions?

  • Okay.

    You are saying that the music video is what it's all about? I would like to think different. it's nice to have a sense of humor, even about something serious.

    In reality, I don't really know what you are saying except about the music video...

  • such an optimistic sound...................

  • Comment removed

  • One of the greatest records ever made, and one of the very few UK instrumentals covered by the great US instrumental bands. When that guitar enters the cosmos, you are indeed in heaven.

  • Fair points one and all. You're not related to John Godolphin are ye?

  • No.

  • When I was a kid growing up, this was on the radio a lot. I used to think it had come from outer space and that people living on the moon were singing to us.

  • That's funny and cute. XD

  • That's amazing...how did you manage to get the music from that single '45 without it rotating?

  • Forest of Dene vril power.

  • That's what I thought!

  • is it hard to get hold of a copy in such good condition?

  • There are currently loads of copies of Telstar on ebay. Make sure you get a DECCA original as the pressing is particularly good.

  • I got version of this song on a record of synth music.

  • I remember hearing this on the Ray-Dee-Oh back in the Stone Age and even as a nipper I thought it was sanitized Alien stuff. Catchy tune but thats about it.

  • Boy, does this take me back. Yep, I'm old enough to remember when this was on the BBC radio every day. Matt definitely based Knights of Cydonia on this sound although he has far surpassed his father.

  • Great...

    But MUSE is Better.

    Matt bellahmy definatly surpassed his fathers acheivments

  • Crazy! Just looking through my 45's that were stored away and came across this tune. As a child I would like to swirl & dance around in my room listening to this.

  • This record was also on the London label.

  • Has any one hurd the version were they sing words to it ?? Ive hurt it 40 years ago.

  • Oh I think you mean "Magic Star" by Kenny Hollywood. That's floating about YouTube somewhere. I personally think it's 'orrible, although I do like the crazy organ intro.

  • I was 10 yrs old when I first heard this.

    How many of you can say that you saw the Telstar Sputnik.

    In the South of England you could see it at night crossing the sky as it was dropping orbit.

    God bless Joe Meek,

    Has left me with a lot of happy memories.

    Watch the film 'Telstar' it is brilliant.

    Out on DVD.

  • Yo nací en 1,967 , y recién conocí esta música hace dos años, en la versión de los Ventures. Hoy , me acabo de enterar , que existía una versión de los Tornados, que me parece que es la original,si no me equivoco. En ambos casos, debo decir, que esta música es tremendamente hermosa!!!. No sé porqué, me produce una preciosa tristeza...

  • I have this except my 45 player doesn't work.

  • matt bellamy from muse wrote knights of cydonia as a tribute to his dad who was in this band

  • this does remind of knights of cydonia

  • matt bellamy father is playing guitar..

  • rythm not the solo unfortunatley

  • i was going to say the opening chord sounds similar to knights of cydonia

  • Well it was his dad!

  • This song brings back alot of memmories for me seeings that I almost 50,every time I

  • Today international TV hookups are very commonplace. Telstar was the first successful communication sattelite launched in 1962. That fall, trans-Atlantic tv viewers saw live b&w telecasts from major European cities as well as Niagara Falls and other North American locations. The broadcasts were brief, since the sattelite moved out of synch with the earth's rotation.

  • and you're still single?

  • We certainly take a lot for granted these days.

  • It's a 1962 instrumental, an homage to space exploration just beginning then.

  • Funny how that would have been taken for futuristic music back then, now it just sounds like plain old nostalgia today!

  • it's dragonfource aat it's finest

  • This song always reminds me of the infant days of the US space program and especially the original 7 astronauts. Only two are left. Long live John Glenn and Scott Carpenter.

  • "Get your hot buttered popcorn at the refreshment stand, and a cool refreshing soda! show starts in 10 minutes"

  • I have to admit that I'm disapointed in this song, I was expecting more. However I am of a younger variety and I probably do not understand what made it great. Perhaps the genius is wasted on me, or maybe it was just a hype.

  • I don't know why you're concerned. You either have a DNA match for this stuff, or you don't, I guess.

  • A Joe Meek classic!! He was a genius!! I think this song hit #1 in England and U.S.

  • First brit group to hit no 1 in the U.S

  • Awesome song! It reminds me of when I was a kid.

  • my dad was in the tornados

  • I bet everyone wants to buy him a drink all the time. Which one's your dad?

  • and you're Matthew Bellamy

    right.

  • The voice (2.32 to 3.00) is Joe Meek's and the spacecraft at the end was created by recording and mixing construction noise/drills etc outside his flat in the Holloway Road. Genius !

  • The voice is Geoff Goddard's and he, not Roger Laverne, played the clavioline (sp) on the recording because the Tornados had to get back to Great Yarmouth where they were appearing at the time. Their next record was to have been the Breeze and I but the Fentones had beaten them to it and so Joe wrote Telstar and it was recorded in a rush. Brilliant tune though.

  • knights of cydonia rythm

  • matt bellamys dad was in the tornados

  • Totally harmonica. My party piece

  • this record was so far ahead of its time. JOE MEEK layed down some great stuff.

    i would say this and APACHE the SHADOWS. were argubly the best instrumentals ever.. and ill bung in wonderful land the SHADOWS also

  • Forget ye not 'Foot-tapper' and 'Atlantis!' :-)

  • Absolutely brilliant, wonderful. The best piece of music ever written.

  • Brings back my Spokane days in the 60 s & a DJ used this in his closing. Anybody from Spokane help with my foggy memory.--KJRB-Woody Woodward (cried the day he died in car wreck)==Bruce in Oregon

  • This song is so legendary, that there's a movie for it coming soon!!

  • The guy responsable for this is a genius called Joe Meeks, the scratchy record at beginning is deliberate. He was the FIRST person to use a synthetic electronic keyboard, that he invented, also designed the cardoid condenser microphone, AND invented "soundgating hiss reduction" which was later developed as DOLBY. GENIUS He killed himself , very sad.

  • The first British intumental to reach No 1 in the USA I think, and no wonder why (awesome)

  • Actually, Stranger on the Shore was also number one and was on the charts in April of 1962 and number one by the summer of that year. Mr. Acker Bilk is a native of Somerset, England. Telstar was number one in November of 1962, just after the Cuban Missile Crisis had the USA on the edge.

  • I have this music on my MP3 player and on my computer and I listen to it over and over again. I have an Asperger obsession with this music, and yesterday as I got onto the bus I was in a world of my own, singing this tune. I realised later that I was lost because I'd got on the wrong bus!

  • i used to have an absession for so such as knowing the song name i did'nt discover the name of this song, after 3 yrs (now like 17) it appeared on "music on cable", never been happier to find another song, til i found out the name ^_^

  • you should become an air traffic controller

  • A T.A at my college said today that I absolutely have to become a writer, particularly for children's stories as I can draw as well. Still, it might be worth looking up what air traffic controllers do. I will try and remember to do that.

  • hey i heard this song at dodger stadium its a baseballsong

  • My first 45--paid 60 cents--and played it to dust.

  • A groundbreaking masterpiece! Anyone remember that it was released the same year with words? You can check it out right here on U-Tube by pulling up MAGIC STAR KENNY HOLLYWOOD . It is so cool with heavy echos, Enjoy!

  • this was the dna gave to me as a nipper with my first mono record player this is why i had to travel weekends to hear 100mph instumental sounds that make my hairs stand on end. no doubt cilla black is why i like beat ballards

  • Yeah, it's that "frequency wave" thing, same as Northern, in a way. Probably is something to do with DNA. There's a lot of fairly inconclusive/scattered/fragmen­ted research been done on the relationships between music/dancing/DNA/consciousnes­s, in the fields of biology/anthropology/ancient religions etc, but there are some things about this subject that CAN ONLY be known by a seasoned Northern dancer, as you probably well know.

  • ahead of it's time, pity about the sound quality as that makes it easy for less wiser ears to call it old/outdated etc

  • Nonsense. Have you heard how weedy and neutered this (and everything else besides) sounds on a CD? The tin-eared invariably mistake digital propriety for sound quality, and that, unfortunately for them, is their loss.

  • the intro to knights of cydonia by muse is based on this b