This week’s episode will consider The 5th Dimension’s medley, “Age of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” (1969) in relation to its Vietnam War Era context and through the lens of Afrofuturism.

This episode was produced by David Thurmaier along with Team Lead Richard Desinord.

SMT-Pod Theme music by Zhangcheng Lu; Closing music "hnna" by David Voss. For supplementary materials on this episode and more information on our authors and composers, check out our website: https://smt-pod.org/episodes/season03/

[Intro Theme: Zhangcheng Lu, “BGM Scales,” followed by producer intro.]

Against the black void that initiates the music video, a pair of flutes and triangle emerge like rays of light. They drift through a broad pitch space which covers over two octaves as they trade kaleidoscopic gestures while the triangle rapidly shimmers behind them. The triangle which rings out for an entire 18 seconds may easily be tuned out or disregarded as simply providing an atmospheric texture. Indeed, it may seem like an unusual musical choice as its shiny tinkling doesn’t fuse particularly well with the other voices. With the addition of the bass, an expansive musical tapestry forms that is at once airy, electric, and metallic.

In the music video that accompanies the track, Which I have linked on the SMT-Pod website. the members of the 5th dimension fade in on a flying saucer, extend their arms upward in slow, flowing movements, and wear gold outfits. This curious opening is something I will explore in greater detail soon.

This episode will consider the 5th Dimension’s medley, “Age of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” (1969) through the lens of Afrofuturism. I hear the medley as a deliberate displacement of these songs from their white hippie origin to the Black progressive and futuristic margins. The two songs come from the rock musical Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical (1967), which examines the white hippie counterculture movement in response to the Vietnam War. While Hair makes deliberate efforts to highlight the experience of Black Americans they still do so from within the white, middle-class hippie movement. For example, in their original contexts, both songs featured in the 5th Dimension’s medley, showcase black voices but center white people in their imagery. Some central questions that I seek to disentangle are how did a song so legibly rooted in 60s white psychedelia translate so smoothly into one about Black futurity? What musical events contribute to this tectonic—or rather cosmic—shift in musical meaning? More broadly, and perhaps more fundamentally, what does space even sound like?

I feel that the descriptive power offered by a timbre-centric analysis will help the song stand alone and speak for itself in the way that I would like. I begin my study by contextualizing the precarious, marginal, and paradoxical position many Black Americans expressed during and after the Vietnam War, followed by an introduction to Afrofuturist framework. Next, I home in on two recurring musical events that I hear as critical to interpreting the 5th Dimension’s futuristic sound: Namely, the previously mentioned 18-second instrumental introduction, and the chorus of the “Age of Aquarius”.

By engaging Afrofuturist scholarship in conversation with timbre and voice studies, this paper considers how the sudden and chromatic harmonies, dramatic gestural transformations, and surprising timbres be heard as otherworldly. Invaluable to my interpretation is the path-making scholarship Matthew Morrison. In his work he highlights the ways white popular media has systemically appropriated and commodified the sonic legacy of Blackface minstrelsy, what he has dubbed Blacksound, to manufacture whiteness. I read the deployment of Blacksound behind the scenes of white protest in the 1967 musical as doing precisely that.

Although white protesters received the majority of anti-war media coverage, it was largely BIPOC who were disproportionately targeted by conscription efforts and suffered a higher casualty rate than their white counterparts. In 1965, African Americans constituted 31% of the ground combat battalions in Vietnam, while only making up 12% of the general population. Further, African Americans suffered 24% of the U.S. Army's fatal casualties, often serving at the vanguard of the military ground forces (Fendrich, 1972).

Cedric Robinson coined the term racial capitalism to centralize the role race plays in the production and accumulation of capital. This nuanced critique of conventional Marxism is important in the context of this episode as many writers and civil rights leaders have pointed out the paradox of being forced to aid a colonial conflict against other people of color for a country that systemically regards them as subhuman. Further, as Black veterans returned home, finding work was difficult and finding fulfilling work was even more so. The Department of Defense conducted two surveys of veterans in 1968 and found that among the African Americans surveyed, despite relatively high levels of education, 52.3% were unemployed or subemployed, and were paid less for their labor than white veterans (Fendrich, 1972). On April 4th, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King gave his “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence'' at the Riverside Church in New York City where he made his first public condemnation of the Vietnam War. Let’s take a listen to a brief section of his speech.

[MLK Speech clip]

The American government paradoxically relied on Black Americans to carry out their colonial conflict abroad while systemically denying them full personhood. The historic relegation of Black people to such precarious and liminal spaces makes Alienation an evocative hinge between ideas and imagery of space, and how it appears in Age of Aquarius. The 5th Dimension’s casting of themselves as literal aliens flying through space on a flying saucer is at once, poignant, and optimistic. Additionally, much of the music’s most arresting moments trade on their ability to make the listener feel disoriented and detached from conventional musical markers that inform our musical expectations.

Imagining Black subjectivity in a time and place distant from our own reads legibly within the Afrofuturist tradition. Afrofuturism was coined by Mark Dery in 1994 to retrospectively consider the robust work of artists, writers and musicians who developed a distinctly Black genre at the periphery of the predominantly white science-fiction genre. Folks like Octavia Butler and Sun Ra used a distant and – to use Dery’s term – “prosthetically enhanced” future to imagine new realities for Black individuals that transcend the systems of oppression that Black folks must constantly navigate (180).

With this context in mind, let’s think back to the beginning of Age of Aquarius. I hear the trajectory of the flute duet as a progression of related tetrachords which gradually become more diffuse. The flute duet begins by trading a sequence of ascending (0257) gestures – a sonority which contains no half-steps and an abundance of perfect intervals.

[(0257) Clip]

The tetrachords then morph to (0148) and its fuzzy relative (0138) tetrachords with alternating contours. Contrasting the (0257) sound, the crunchier (0148) sequence foregrounds the half-step interval and is much more tertian. The last sound we are left with is a return to the (0257) tetrachord, but this time split between the two flutes.

[(0148) Clip]

By the end of the duet, the listener may feel lost in the shifting pitch space just as the 5th Dimension’s video disorients the viewer in physical space. Essentially, the (0257) label refers to a group of four pitches that can be spaced apart by perfect fifths or perfect fourths, C G D and A for example. While useful for describing a sonority by its constituent pitch classes, prime form labels do not describe where these notes exist in space or how they relate to one another. (0257) could refer to an open spacing of notes spanning almost two octaves as in the previously mentioned CGDA tetrachord…

[Example Clip]

It could also refer to a more crowded tetrachord confined within the span of a perfect fifth…

[Example Clip]

This spatial ambiguity is important to clarify as I hear the more vast configurations as evoking a boldness and optimism. Without the crunch of any half-steps, an open spaced (0257) tetrachord sounds expansive and transparent, clear and metallic. For me, the (027) trichord of two stacked fourths is particularly notable as it denies my tonal desire to hear it collapse into something more round and tertian. These hermeneutic impressions have led it to be deployed in many familiar contexts in the popular imagination. Let’s listen to some examples:

[Star Trek Clip]

As some of you may already know, this was the theme from Star Trek (1966-69). It opens with a flute gesture which introduces the audience to a similar sonic world via an (0247) tetrachord. As the horns enter, many features of the iconic melody can be heard in the 5th Dimension’s opening. The Star Trek theme features stacked fourths, the (027) subset, the last four notes of the melody constitute an (0257) tetrachord.

Perhaps among the most widely recognizable examples of space music is the unison trumpet theme of the Star Wars opening.

[Star Wars Clip]

But there’s nothing explicitly spacey about this melody. It’s evocative of what’s called a fanfare topic given its dominant brass color and leaps of perfect intervals. Certainly, sounds heroic, but not so much outerspacey. However, when we consider that the harmonies punctuating this melody are (0257) tetrachords, and the brass introduction that frames it, the space context begins to crystalize. I hear this brass introduction as setting a busy musical landscape that is vast and epic.

[Star Wars Brass Clip]

The brass instruments cascade around two stacked fourths, the (027) subset. At the end of the introduction, the low brass in ascend in unison ascend another perfect fourth to a new note, Ab which completes the (0257) tetrachord just before the fanfare that we all know begins in earnest.

It should however be acknowledged that the first Star Wars movie wasn’t released until 1977 – 8 years after Age of Aquarius. While I don’t mean to draw a direct line from these examples to our context at hand, I do think that the motive of stacked perfect fourths and (0257) sound has a long association with space. Additionally, these examples share some common textural and timbral features. They all deploy brass instruments which convey a sense of metallic sleekness. Additionally, both examples contrast these bold spacious sounds with an ethereal, twinkling timbre: in Star Trek, this is accomplished with the flutes, high strings, and glockenspiel; and in Star Wars, after the initial thematic fanfare, we are left with shimmering, space-dust like strings and an iconic piccolo solo.

[Star Wars Piccolo Solo]

If we accept this proposed constellation of contrasting textures and harmonies as supporting features of musical otherworldliness, the metallic triangle, flutes, and grounding electric bass sound as an important primer to our Afrofuturist hearing. Important to note though, while these examples deploy garden-variety orchestral instruments to create this atmosphere, many other artists have evoked space using similar formulas outside of the orchestral realm. For example, I think of the variety of instruments and sounds used by Parliament Funkadelic or Sun Ra to create their Afrofuturist music.

Moving along in Age of Aquarius, the melodic line of the verse section has a gentle contour which starts on G, ascends to Bb, and wends back down to G. The modal groove beneath it is somewhat ambiguous as the strummed chords in the harp oscillate between G-minor and F-Major, with the bass line insisting on C as the tonal center.

[Verse Example]

However, after two phrases of gliding through the modal murkiness comes a flash of tonal clarity. The music pivots to Bb? Suddenly more voices emerge singing in octaves, but it's difficult to tell exactly how many until they blossom into rich harmony.

[Sound Example]

For those who know what happens next, sorry for the cut. However, if this were our first listening to this song, we might have two possible expectations for this resolution. Considering this flipping between tonic and dominant, perhaps we can hear a resolution back up to Bb

[Example]

Perhaps a first-time listener might anticipate the line to follow the line’s inertia downward and mirroring the verse section.

[Example]

Thankfully neither of these actually happen because… yikes. What we do get sounded completely out of left field the first time I heard it. Let’s listen to the entire section now without my obnoxious cuts.

[Full Chorus Clip]

At the most local level, the sudden shift from F major (dominant of Bb) to Ab major is chromatically jarring yet smooth as the chords slide about their common tone, C. Let’s consider for a moment the significance that could be read into this harmonic fake out. Many conceptualizations of tonic-dominant relationship rely on metaphors to nature. For centuries, analogies have been drawn between gravity and the imperative of bass motion by fifth and dominant-tonic resolution. In this light, this double-denial of possibilities which could both be justified in such Newtonian terms could be heard as gravity-defying. Additionally, this thrilling moment reflects a melodic lift-off of sorts as the generally descending contours become ascending and the song reaches an affective climax.

However, we shouldn’t forget that this motion was already present in the 1967 original. Can this progression be referential to space if it is already legible as psychedelic? Let’s take a listen to this whole section as it sounds in the original Broadway production of Hair:

[Original Broadway Cast Recording]

While the harmonies may be the same, the timbres, textures, and voicing are importantly different. Let’s consider the line “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.” In the 5th Dimension version, the voices are clear without the use of vibrato for a well-blended mixed-voice sound. They start in an octave and only expand into multi-part harmony as the line descends, almost to mask the full extent of their multitude. In the Hair version, the verse section is rich with emotion expressed by beautiful, slow vibrato and pitch bending. When the chorus enters, it immediately sounds like many singers who are belting and using vibrato. You can much more easily pick out specific voices.

Victoria Malawey in her book “A Blaze of Light in Every Word” offers a rich survey of critics and scholars writing the voice. Scholars she cites on vibrato describe its presence as contributing a sense of fullness, embodiment, and even as specifically coding a sound as being produced by the human body (Young 2015, 148). Voice without vibrato on the other hand sounds emotionally distant. Thus, the vibrato produced in the Broadway version evokes a sense of passion, embodiment, and humanism; while I hear the lack thereof and controlled, even timbre in the 5th Dimension’s version encoding notions of disembodiment, remoteness, and the post-human (Bowman, 2003, 115). Black Studies scholars like Alexander Weheliye and Marlo David, have long criticized notions of humanism for its centering on Enlightenment values and the white male subject. Because concepts of the human, and related concepts of “subhuman” and “nonhuman” have been used to exclude Black individuals from claims to humanity, post-human thought counters the treacherous category altogether.

Further, the spatiality of the recordings also struck me. In the 5th Dimension’s version, their voices sound so immediate, crisp and well-balanced, in large part likely because of the allowances of a small recording studio. The Broadway cast recording on the other hand sounds like there is much more depth and individuality between the singers. Some voices are heard more clearly while others fade behind them. Thomas Turino describes this contrast with the terms High Fidelity and Studio Audio Art to describe this contrast. High Fidelity recordings are meant to index or be iconic of live performances while Studio Audio Art is not intended to represent live performance. Both involve technological mediation, but the traces of this mediation is downplayed in High Fidelity recordings while in plain sight or even exaggerated in Studio Audio Art. Hence, the relative liveness of the Broadway version offered a more tangible sense of bodies in space, while the even and well-blended 5th Dimension recording sounds more spatially ambiguous.

Though this progression may not have intended for a science fiction context at its inception, I hear these textural and timbral nuances as helping to redefine it for a futuristic hearing.

I have yet to say anything about the second half of the medley “Let the Sunshine In.” While this song is just great in its own ways, I don’t hear it as futuristic. It sounds grounded and earthly. There is an immediate shift in dance style between the Age of Aquarius and the onset of Let of the Sunshine In. The 5th Dimension’s dancing uses a much wider range of motion with swaying, bending, over and clapping. The cool effect that marked much of the Age of Aquarius melts and is replaced by a much more embodied sound. In an interview with American Songwriter Magazine (Uitti, 2021), Florence LaRue described the impulse to pair the two songs precisely because of their difference. In contrast to the cosmic Age of Aquarius, LaRue mentions that the song “Let the Sunshine" is not just about the “s-u-n shine,” but also the S-o-n shine. LaRue’s statement emphasizes the gospel undertones of the song, which lends us to hear it as an earthly, impassioned anthem.

The fact that these recycled and contrasting songs come together to form a multifaceted portrait of Black experience speaks to me like assemblage art. Sampada Aranke (2021, 81-82) defines assemblage as an art-making practice defined by its radical composition of found, discarded, and devalued objected. She notes that one significant tradition of assemblage is a decidedly Black aesthetic vocabulary that rebukes a white avant-garde canonicity. I read this description as resonating well with the medley. The songs don’t even have much of a transition. We zap to a new tonal center a half step lower, with a different tempo. Let’s take a listen to this moment.

[Transition Clip]

Although this is a surprising musical moment for sure, it still works so well, and when considered alongside the black assemblage art genre, I think the medley track can be heard as an act of reclamation. Indeed, Marilyn McCoo describes the group’s performance at the 1969 Summer of Soul in Harlem as being of particular importance to her as an opportunity to bring their music to and be received by the Black community after being consistently labeled as “white-sounding.” Let’s hear a clip from McCoo’s heartfelt interview from Questlove’s 2021 documentary Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised).

[Interview clip]

I understand McCoo’s statement as expressing a deliberate centering of blackness not just in the group’s image but also in how their music is interpreted.

There is still much more work to be done in defining an Afrofuturist sonic aesthetic. How many contextual – or extra-musical - markers need to be present for a song to be evocative of Afrofuturism or space in general? After all, the 5th Dimension’s music video depicts the group flying through space, the theme of Star Wars is prefaced with “a long time ago in a galaxy far far away,” and the theme of Star Trek says the word “Space” right at the beginning. Put another way, can musical texture and harmony alone support such a reading? To further complicate this question, popular perception of space is slippery.

It is at once an exciting frontier full of mysteries and wonder, while also a site of geo-political, imperialist, and existential anxiety. Surely, depending on how one is characterizing space will drastically change its sound. I am inclined to believe that Afrofuturist musical expression is larger than sonic features alone. I hear it as a unique constellation of culturally specific factors such as musical textures, programmatic paratext, and artist persona to name a few. In this spirit, I would like to close with a quote by Ytasha Womack (2013, 24) that beautifully frames how we can continue to think about what Afrofuturism is, and the optimism that the genre embodies:

“The imagination is a tool of resistance. Creating stories with people of color in the future defies the norm. With the power of technology and emerging freedoms, black artists have more control over their image than ever before. Welcome to the future.”

[Outro Theme: David Voss, “hnna”]

I would like to thank Jennifer Beavers and Megan Lyons for their role as editors of SMT-Pod, and Richard Desinord on the program committee who helped me throughout the production process. Additionally, my sincerest gratitude to Phillip Ewell whose thoughtful and supportive feedback helped me to clarify my episode.

[Outro Theme: David Voss, “hnna”]

Visit our website smt-pod.org for supplemental materials related to this episode and to learn how to submit an episode proposal. And join in on the conversation by tweeting your questions and comments about this episode @SMT_Pod. SMT Pod's theme music was written by Zhangcheng Lu with closing music by David Voss. Thanks for listening!