Song of the Day 6/7: Klaatu, “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft”

I don’t know if you saw this, but a whistleblower with a high security clearance says there’s a secret government program that has retrieved wreckage of non-human origin. This isn’t some anonymous source — he’s a highly respected intelligence agent who has gone public with this.

Though mainstream media has been suspiciously slow to pick up the story, it caught the attention of Rep. James Comer, who promises to take time from his busy schedule investigating Hunter Biden and Lappy™ for — what else? — another investigation.

Believe it or not — and why wouldn’t you? — there’s already a semi-official song for contacting extraterrestrial lifeforms. Klaatu, a Canadian trio that was briefly rumored to be the Beatles incognito, released it in 1976 on their LP “3:47 EST.” Were these guys sci-fi fans? The band was named after the robot in the seminal ’50s anti-war film “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” and the album was named for the time Klaatu’s flying saucer landed in Washington.

Klaatu’s John Woloschuk explained the tune’s genesis:

The idea for this track was suggested by an actual event that is described in “The Flying Saucer Reader,” a book by Jay David published in 1967. In March 1953 an organization known as the “International Flying Saucer Bureau” sent a bulletin to all its members urging them to participate in an experiment termed “World Contact Day” whereby, at a predetermined date and time, they would attempt to collectively send out a telepathic message to visitors from outer space. The message began with the words…”Calling occupants of interplanetary craft!”

An edited version of the tune couldn’t crack the Top 40 — it stalled at No. 62 in 1976 — but that wasn’t the end of it. The Carpenters, at that point their hit-making heyday a few years in the past, recorded it for their 1977 LP “Passage.” They parenthetically billed the tune “The Recognized Anthem Of World Contact Day,” and many fans wanted to know the date.

Between the choir and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Richard Carpenter used more than 150 musicians to produce the record. As a single it reached only No. 32 in the US, but it’s included on many of the band’s greatest hits albums because it made the Top 10 in several countries, including No. 1 in Ireland. It also prompted a TV special, “The Carpenters…Space Encounters,” which featured this video. The DJ is actually the band’s guitarist, Tony Peluso.