Robert Calvert - we like to be frightened

Here's a rare Rob Calvert song which i myself have not heard so often - although i am a self professed Robert Calvert fan. Rob Calvert was one of Britains greatest Rock Poets, who unfortunately died too early from a heart attack. His contributions to the band Hawkwind were indispensable and left lasting impressions on the science fiction acid rock bands' projected image of futuristic psychic warriors from another time.
The man was somehow a genius of alternative viewpoints, and liked to place reality into different perspectives, and view it from a less conditioned way of looking at things. Or perhaps 'reconditioned" is the word, for he did indeed reprogram his world with his visions of alternative realities. The worlds he created with his poems and lyrics have become almost real in the minds of those who have absorbed his Cosmology into their brains. Surrealistic and Quirky are the worlds which Robert Calvert projects with his Poetry. I believe he is an individual who cannot be likened to any other personality, with perhaps the exception of the Sci Fi author Philip K Dick, who was also rather schizo and addicted to amphetamines, which is something that could perhaps also be said for Rob.  Philip K. Dick was then author of Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) and A Scanner Darkly (which was made into a movie with Keanu Reeves), and The Zap Gun

I became a real fan of Rob Calvert when i heard his two concept albums, "Lucky Leif and the Longships", and "Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters".
Lucky Leif was an album about an alternative Earth, where the Vikings managed to reach America, and how America would now be if it had been so.

Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters is a concept album that takes a tongue in cheek look at the Nazis, and the second world war.

Download Rob Calvert Mp3s 

Lucky Leif and the Longships Album;
The Making of Midgard | Voyaging to Vinland | Ship of Fools | The Lay of the Surfers | Brave New World

Robert Calvert also appeared with many other Prog Rock bands of the seventies and early eighties, such as Amon Duul in their 1989 album, - Die Losung
The Strawberry Bricks Guide to Progressive Rock   Classic Rock Presents Prog (Jethro Tull, Pentangle, Fairpoint Convention... John Martyn, Number 12 2010)

 

Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Calvert

This is an amazing piece of Prog Rock Poetry with the same name as the Cult 60s Bible of the Hippies "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein. Stranger in a Strange Land is a connotation to thos epople who are either born before their time, oor feel that their thinking and worldview is different to that of the general conditioned minds of society, and does not feel at home in this enviroment.
The book by Heinlein portrays the world from the point of view of a Human being who grew up with aliens on another planet (Mars). This is a massive Social Satire and Critique of the values which Human Society places on things, and how importand things are neglected and unhealthy things are promoted. The concept of right and wrong, justice and mercy, compassion etc is also turned on their heads and viewed from an alternative perspective. I wonder if Rob Calverts song refers to these things?