Certain Songs #457: A Flock of Seagulls - "Space Age Love Song"

Album: A Flock of Seagulls
Year: 1982

Looking back, it seemed so simple: take one part soaring synthesizers, one part mechanical drumbeats and one part echoing guitar parts, and voila! futuristic-sounding pop music that was completely of the moment.

That was the formula that A Flock of Seagulls rode for three successive killer singles from their eponymous debut album. “Telecommunication” was the weird one, “I Ran” the massive one and “Space Age Love Song” the wistful one.

Not to mention, you know, SPACE!

With guitarist Paul Reynolds playing the same licks over and over and Mike Score singing call-and-response with himeself, “Space Age Love Song” started out grand and and ended up as massive as a wall of clouds in the distance that was probably going to rain on you.

The other neat trick was taking lyrics as seemingly upbeat as:

I saw your eyes
And you made me smile
For a little while
I was falling in love

and making them sound sad.

Because that’s what I get from “Space Age Love Song”: sadness. Sadness that whatever Mike Score is describing is long long over, which meant that it was sung from a perspective long after the Space Age.

Of course, I realize that “Space Age Love Song” describes the sound of the song, and not the lyrical content, but to paraphrase Eric Clapton & Bobby Whitfield, why does love in the space age got to be so sad?

That we’ll never know just adds to the mystery of the song.

Fan-made video for “Space Age Love Song”