Hawkwind - Silver Machine
I read this essay by Alfred Jarry called, "How to Construct a Time Machine", and...I seemed to suss out immediately that what he was describing was his bicycle. He did have that turn of mind. He was the kind of bloke who'd think it was a good joke to write this very informed sounding piece, full of really good physics (and it has got some proper physics in it), describing how to build a time machine, which is actually about how to build a bicycle, buried under this smoke-screen of physics that sounds authentic....I thought it was a great idea for a song. At that time there were a lot of songs about space travel....They'd put a man on the moon and were planning to put parking lots and hamburger stalls and everything up there. I thought that it was about time to come up with a song that actually sent this all up, which was 'Silver Machine'. 'Silver Machine' was just to say, I've got a silver bicycle, and nobody got it. I didn't think they would. I thought that what they would think we were singing about some sort of cosmic space travel machine. I did actually have a silver racing bike when I was a boy. I've got one now, in fact. – Songwriter Robert Calvert in Cheesecake No. 5, April 1981, as quoted here.
Silver bicycle or cosmic space travel machine? Why not both?










