Matt LuceySince the early days of mankind, we would gaze up at the stars at night. For tens of thousands of years, we looked blindly, attributing the far distant points of light to the work of one god or another. The earliest known documentation of these celestial bodies comes from ancient Mesopotamia during the Kassite Period, around 1500 BCE, when they began to catalog and study the stars.
This practice, though ancient, is not as old as music, which some believe predates anatomically modern humans. Early music likely revolved around percussion and rhythm, yet bone flutes over 40,000 years old have been discovered. Music is so deeply woven into our nature, enduring through civilizations and societies, that it is no surprise that when humans ventured into space, they carried with them one of their most treasured cultural expressions—music.
The Voyager Golden Record: A Message Beyond Earth
In 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, two spacecraft with the most ambitious and historic mission: to go beyond routine missions in low Earth orbit, past our solar system, and into the depths of interstellar space. This mission was the perfect opportunity to send a representation of humanity into the cosmos, where our species would never be able to travel.
This was the perfect opportunity to send proof of our world, our culture, intelligence and our music, into space. Should any intelligent species discover our wayward vessels, they would know that a civilization was capable of sending ships into deep space from our part of the galaxy. They would also know that our understanding of maths and science went beyond our space engineering skills. Finally, they would discover our species through our ability to create art.
Another reason for this, from a more human point of view, was to send something into space, beyond our solar system, that will likely outlast us as a species. Humanity, in the grand scheme, is in its infancy. We wage petty wars and destroy our own planet blindly. This mission means that, long after our disappearance, our legacy, proof that we were here, will endure, floating around, far from home, carrying one of humanity’s most prized and ancient aspects: Music.
The Songs Included on the Golden Record
The Voyager Golden Record includes a carefully curated selection of music from around the world, representing various cultures and time periods:
- Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, first movement (4:40)
- Java: court gamelan, “Kind of Flowers” (4:43)
- Senegal: percussion (2:08)
- Zaire: Pygmy girls’ initiation song (0:56)
- Australia: Aboriginal songs “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird” (0:56)
- Mexico: “El Cascabel” (0:56)
- Chuck Berry: “Johnny B. Goode” (2:38)
- New Guinea: men’s house song (2:38)
- Japan: flute, “Crane’s Nest” (2:38)
- Johann Sebastian Bach: Partita No. 3 in E major for violin, Gavotte en rondeau (2:38)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Magic Flute, “Queen of the Night” aria (2:55)
- Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic: chorus, “Tchakrulo” (2:18)
- Peru: panpipes and drums (0:52)
- Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven: “Melancholy Blues” (3:05)
- Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic: bagpipes (2:30)
- Igor Stravinsky: Rites of Spring, sacrificial dance (4:35)
- Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No. 1 (4:48)
- Ludwig van Beethoven: Fifth Symphony, first movement (7:20)
- Bulgaria: “Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin” (4:59)
- Navajo Indians: night chant (0:57)
- Anthony Holborne: “The Fairie Round” (1:17)
- Solomon Islands: panpipes (1:12)
- Peru: wedding song (0:38)
- China: “Flowing Streams” (7:37)
- India: raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho” (3:30)
- Blind Willie Johnson: “Dark Was the Night” (3:15)
- Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet No. 13 in B flat, Op. 130, Cavatina (6:37)
- The Sounds of Earth
The Sounds of Earth: Capturing Our Planet’s Soundscape
“The Sounds of Earth” is the fourth track on the record, following a series of greetings from various sources. This 12-minute soundscape feels slightly surreal to listen to. While not exactly a song, this strange track aims to capture the auditory essence of Earth. It includes a variety of sounds that might give a listener an immersive experience of our planet, such as:
- Weather phenomena like storms, rain, wind, and thunder
- Sounds of streams, rainforests, and various landscapes, complete with the animals and ambiance expected in those locations
- Monkeys howling at night, farm animals like sheep and songbirds, and blacksmiths working in the background
- Bustling city noises, roadworks, boat horns, and horse-drawn carriages
Sounding almost like a collection of background noises for a film, this portion of the record accurately portrays the auditory landscape of Earth.
Louis Armstrong and “Melancholy Blues”
No one can deny that Louis Armstrong embodies the swing jazz movement. He dominated the genre and is listed in many jazz musicians’ lists of influences.
The song included in this list, “Melancholy Blues,” is a fantastic addition. While not Armstrong’s most well-known work, the song, written in 1927, was a favorite of Alan Lomax, a curator involved in compiling this record. And understandably so. The work that Armstrong did with His Hot Seven is hailed within the jazz community as a turning point in the genre, moving away from standards and towards new patterns. This shift eventually led to styles like scat and the swing numbers we now associate with his career.
This song is heartwarming and has the ability to make you forget everything else for a few minutes—just focus on the music. That quality, found in much of Armstrong’s work, made its inclusion on this record more than warranted.
The Controversial Inclusion of “Johnny B. Goode”
“Johnny B. Goode” was also included on the disk. This was a very controversial decision at the time, given that in the 1970s, rock and roll, which had only been around for a short while, was considered rebellious and juvenile. Carl Sagan defended the inclusion, arguing that there were juveniles on the planet and that the disk was meant to represent all of humanity—not just those who favored classical music.
While controversial at the time, this inclusion has since become far more accepted. The generation who grew up listening to rock is now in the same position as those who once dismissed it as undeserving. “Johnny B. Goode” wasn’t the first rock song, nor is it the best or the pinnacle of the genre. But it is iconic. At the time, it was groundbreaking, helping usher rock into the limelight and inspiring millions over the years. I can’t think of a more perfect song to summarize the genre of rock than “Johnny B. Goode.”
The Emotional Weight of Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground“
Finally, we come to the song that inspired me to write this piece: Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground. This song was recorded by Blind Willie Johnson in 1927 and earned its place on this list more than almost any other.
Johnson was blinded by his mother at the age of seven, according to his widow, and was entirely self-taught on the guitar. He learned the blues by hearing others and expressing himself through music. Having lived homeless, playing guitar on street corners and at small gigs, Johnson wrote and recorded this song three years before passing away—penniless and homeless after his house burned down.
This song was included to express the human emotion of depression—an emotion that everyone on Earth has felt at one time or another. Its lyricless vocals and slow slide guitar evoke deep feelings of hopelessness, loneliness, and sorrow that are impossible not to sympathize with.
According to Timothy Ferris, who was also involved in curating the record, “Johnson’s song concerns a situation he faced many times: nightfall with no place to sleep. Since humans appeared on Earth, the shroud of night has yet to fall without touching a man or woman in the same plight.”
Doubtless, this song will sufficiently convey—without the need for language or context—the emotion Johnson poured into it all those years ago. Like other great artists who went uncelebrated in their lifetime, the saddest part of this story is that Johnson will never know that his music made it into space and that his feelings were understood.
The Legacy of Humanity in Space
This entire mission was one of the most important that NASA has ever undertaken. It was not about finding new resources or racing another country into space. It was not even about scientific discovery. The Voyager spacecraft left our legacy floating in the stars—not an American legacy, nor a limited, subjective snippet, but a carefully curated snapshot of music to represent who we are as a species. One can only hope that one day, we will boldly go where no man has gone before, follow these vessels and update the list.
