THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

577-Hawkwind-Silver Machine.

1972-Number 3 single.

Best Bit-At 0.22. The last song Lemmy wrote before being fired from Hawkwind, was a song called ‘Motorhead,’ and the rest is history.

Hawkwind were formed in Ladbroke Grove, London, England, in 1969 by Dave Brock, Mike Slattery, John Harrison, Terry Ollis, Nik Turner, and Michael ‘Dik Mik’ Davies. In total to date there have been 46 different band members come and go, with the only constant being Dave Brock. Some of the famous names who have played with the band over the years include Ian ‘Lemmy Kilmister (1945-2015) Simon House, and Ginger Baker (1939-2019.) Hawkwind have released 30 studio Albums to date between 1970-2020, they have also released 11 live Albums, and 22 singles.Their style of music is hard, progressive, psychedelic Rock, and they are also noted for being one of the leaders in ‘Space Rock.’ This is a genre of music that is characterised by lengthy song structures, that may feature distorted and reverberation laden guitars, lyrical themes often deal with science fiction.

‘Silver Machine’ was written by Dave Brock and Robert Calvert, (1945-1988) who joined Hawkwind in 1971, he was also the bands lead vocalist at that time, Brock also produced the track using the alias ‘Dr Technical.’ Calvert had sung the lead vocals on the original live recording of the song, but the majority verdict was that his voice sounded too week, so after others auditioned, it was the vocals of Lemmy (see also best songs 16) that were eventually used instead. Calvert suffered from Bi-polar disorder, and had been sectioned, so he didn’t know of the re-recording of the vocals at that time.

The song was inspired by the French writer Alfred Jarry’s (1873-1907) essay ‘How To Construct a Time Machine.’ The lyrics are a send up, whereas Jarry wrote about constructing a ‘Cosmic space travel machine,’ Brock and Calvert made it about a new silver racing bike.

‘It flies out of a dream, it’s antiseptically clean, you’re gonna know where I’ve been.’