Track 71: Saviour Machine
In the Doctor Who serial The War Machine (Season 3, 1966), the (as yet undesignated First) Doctor and companions (to be) Polly and Ben Jackson come up against super-computer WOTAN (Will Operating Thought ANalogue). WOTAN is housed in the newly built, then space-age, Post Office (now BT) Tower. It will interlink with other computers around the world, and can even network with human brains. WOTAN soon realizes that humans are old tech, and so aims to take over the Earth and enslave humankind. The story not only pre-sages the internet, but also 2001 and the Terminator films. Doctor Who was beyond popular in the 1960s and 1970s, and Bowieologist Nicholas Pegg tells us Bowie and the band – who were holed up in Haddon Hall composing, rehearsing and partying – would catch the show on Saturday evenings. No doubt with a spliff – Bowie was caning the stuff at the time. The Third Doctor was on-screen, and Pegg calls out serials such as The Silurians and Inferno (both Season 7, 1970), but I think it is more likely Bowie tripped back to The War Machine – and so we get the lyrics to the Saviour Machine. The cut has a killer riff – but more than any other track on The Man Who Sold the World, the sonic landscape belongs to Mace’s moog which gives a prog-rock, space-age feel to the piece. Bowie sings of a computer called The Prayer which solves the world’s problems before teatime, and then goes on to fuck with us. It aint happened yet, but futurologists still see this as a risk on par with environmental catastrophe and being hit by an asteroid.
‘Saviour Machine’: Track 6 of The Man Who Sold The World album. Written by David Bowie. Released 4 November 1970 (USA); April 1971 (UK). Available on The Man Who Sold The World (1970).
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