Although both Sun Ra and the British band Hawkwind developed a space mythology in which they themselves play the leading roles, their mythologies have very little in common. Sun Ra's Astro-Black Mythology is a mixture of gnosticism, alternative bible interpretations, afrocentric theories, Egyptology, science fiction, and modern science, and contains a deeply religious message for everybody in general, and Afro-Americans in particular. Sun Ra, who thought of himself as an angel from Saturn, conveys a message of love and salvation through his music. Music is the spacecraft with which commander Sun Ra delivers the listener from his existence on planet Earth
and offers him a glimpse of infinity.
Hawkwind's music, on the other hand, doesn't convey any message but sends the listener on an uncertain, at times fearful trip through space in a ramshackle spacecraft. This is true of the first three Hawkwind albums, which reflect the band's ecstatic, LSD fueled live performances of the early seventies. Their trashy space mythology first took shape in Bob Calvert's Hawkwind Log, which was included in the band's second album In Search Of Space, and was later developed by science-fiction writer Michael Moorcock.
The angel from Saturn and the space-punks from England send out a contradictory message from space in the track PÜLSÅR SRH7Ø9Ø. Dualism surpassed.
Tonight I've felt more love
Than I have in a whole lifetime
Get impressions of love
That has nothing to do with sex
Get impressions of friendship
That has no reason for being
Friendship
That's what I'm talking about
Friends are not friends for any reason whatsoever
But it's a very beautiful relationship
I won myself a friendly galaxy
I got my friendship
They said that God is love
And that's all they said
But I think that's limiting God
God is more than love can ever be
And I unlimited God
From being one attribute
God, you see, is greater than love
But he does love you
So he sent his love to you
That's me
And I'm coming out there
I'm love
And I'm coming out there
And don't let love pass by
Without the touch of love
I'm love
The soundtrack is a mix of Sun Ra talking to John Hinds (1990) and part of Seeing It As You Really Are from the first Hawkwind album (1970).
Sun Ra Research CD One, SRR001
Hawkwind - Hawkwind (1970), released on CD by One Way Records, S21 57658
