The title track from my album Time Traveler was partially inspired by the Jack Finney book Time and Again. I saw this book mentioned in the liner notes of Stephen King’s fantastic book 11/22/63. King referred to it as “THE great time travel story”. That piqued my interest. After reading Time and Again, I agree.
Before I read Finney’s book, my point of reference for time travel was HG Well’s Time Machine. The book, and the various movies based upon it. The Back To The Future movies were a more modern take on a similar idea. That being:
Scientist creates a machine that allows someone to go forward or backward in time. Chaos ensues…
What I love about Time and Again is that the method employed to accomplish time travel is almost completely free of technology. This is the real brilliance of the story in my opinion. As far as I know, as compared to other books and movies on the subject, Finney’s approach is unique. Much like Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, it challenged my expectations. But I won’t spoil the story for you. It’s too good. I hope you get a chance to check it out for yourself. Maybe you already have…?
My song Time Traveler is similar to Finney’s book only in the sense that I left out the technology. That’s the inspiration that I borrowed. I love the contrast. A folky acoustic song about something so blindingly sci-fi.
“Over and over I’ve seen them fall down. The empires. The mountains. The men. Nothing much changes. They just rearrange it and build it back up again.”
What is interesting to me is not whether time travel will ever be possible, but rather that we are so fascinated by the idea. Time travel is intriguing. I mean, who doesn’t have a time in the past or future that they’d like to visit?
This song appears on the album Time Traveler.
