Peter Schickele and Joan Baez - Silent Running OST 1971

I wanted to share this record because the movie is one of my favourites from the seventies with its completely implausible attempt by caretaker Bruce Dern to save earth's biosphere on a large spaceship heading out to nowhere... the combination of beautiful 2001-like special effects and achingly idealistic earth-day ecology is unmistakably seventies. Two really remarkable songs were included in this soundtrack, which was composed by Peter Schickele, sung by Joan Baez, "Rejoice in the Sun" and the title track, "Silent Running" -- the latter in particular really deserves to be played on satellite radio, it's a lost masterpiece without doubt. It features a really odd chord progression (F - A minor - E min - G - C - B min - D - F sharp min - A7 - D) and a very melancholy A minor slow refrain about weeping over the death of the earth.
"Earth between my toes, and a flower in my hair,
that's what I was wearing when we lay
among the ferns...
Earth between my toes, and a flower I will wear
when he returns..."

Ouch! those painfully innocent 70s!!!
(Btw when is the last time you saw ferns except in a botanical garden? And yet I recall my mom picking fiddleheads in our childhood backyard when we were very small, for us to eat.)

Most of the remainder of the album is typical orchestral soundtrack music, quite well composed... what a shame he spent so much time on a score that is completely lost to all human CN-VIII auditory nerves, with a couple of noticeable tracks: "Drifting" with its few progressive rock moves.

Let's not even consider the probability that a large spaceship could transport an intact biosphere (remember the biosphere 2 experiment?) through outer space with its deadly cosmic rays and the anachronistic consequent naivete in exploring the topic, and just enjoy the beauty of these compositions...

Rejoice in the sun


Silent Running