Musical Monday - I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper by Sarah Brightman (featuring Hot Gossip)

Let us stop and consider the landscape that faced a science fiction fan in 1978. On the one hand, Star Wars had been released the year before, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture was in production, but this was the look that most people associated with the science fiction genre. Silver clothing! Spandex! Bare chests! Smoke machines! Mysterious lighting! Falling glitter! Planets!

There is also the odd composition of the video to consider. Why, for example, did it seem like a good idea to have the lead singer sitting or lying down in several scenes, her face completely obscured by the omnipresent smoke from the smoke machine? Why does the dance troupe do a significant portion of the routine apparently holding little barbell weights? Is this supposed to be an aerobics class?

Of course, this only leads into the lyrics, which are a confused jumble of science fiction references that seem to have been placed in a blender and then dumped onto the page almost at random. In addition to the fairly obvious reference to Heinlein in the title and chorus, Darth Vader has been banished to Mars, and Captain Strange is asked if he is devoid of emotion like a droid. The singer's body needs a "close encounter three", and she begs for someone to "take me, make me feel the Force". In addition, Flash Gordon has left her for the stars, and she's fighting for the Federation. Remember through this all that this song was reasonably a successful hit, topping out at number six on the U.K. charts. In short, this is what passed for "good" science fiction music in the late 1970s.

Previous Musical Monday: Monsters of the Cosmos by Symphony of Science

Subsequent Musical Monday: Let Her Go by Passenger

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