Blue Oyster Cult - Veteran of the Psychic Wars

Long ago, when I was still in high school, some friends and I were hanging out listening to some rock and roll, as you do. It was the nineties, and we lived in a small town and none of us had much in the way of money so were still listening to cassettes, as the transition to CDs was only beginning. One of my friends had a copy of Blue Oyster Cults Greatest Hits. It was sixteen songs and apparently, they were all hits.

At that time the radio was our only venue to listen to music, and CJay 92 had only provided us with two songs by The Blue Oyster Cult, the legendary “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and the equally awesome “Burnin’ for You.” A few years later we would discover “Godzilla” which I believe we heard in the movie “Road Trip,” but I do not feel like researching whether or not I am remembering that correctly. Basically, between the three of us, we only knew three Blue Oyster Cult songs.

I wish I could tell you, we put that cassette in and listened to it and discovered the greatness of songs like “Astronomy,” but we did not, at least not while I was present. I would discover the depth of Blue Oyster Cult later in life.

When you only know three songs by a band and only really love two of them, but they have a bunch of supposed classics and fourteen studio albums, trying to decide where to start can be a paralyzing endeavour. One easy option would have been to purchase a greatest hits collection, but that is for posers, so that is no longer an option for me, I mean I have literally made writing about music a hobby, I cannot chance being a poser anymore. I did the next most logical thing I picked up the album with the song I liked most “Burnin’ for You,” was the song, and it was on the 1981 album “Fire of Unknown Origin.”

Loved it, I freaking loved it.

I listen to a lot of progressive rock and “Fire of Unknown Origin” was a perfect progressive rock album. My perspective of Blue Oyster Cult was not just enriched but I now saw them for what they always were, a highly experimental and creative progress rock band.

I have listened to a lot of Blue Oyster Cult since then. I learned to love songs from every point in their career. From their most recent album the 2001 “Curse of the Hidden Mirror” which has a song called “The Old Gods Return” which is Lovecraftian, so it really appealed to me. Or from the 1977 album “Spectres” mostly with the song “I Love the Night” a song I am enjoying so much I almost chose to write about it instead of “Veteran of the Psychic Wars.”

On “Fire of Unknown Origin” there are many songs that I would call psychedelic, but the most out there, and probably the greatest for it, is “Veteran of the Psychic Wars.” The title tells you a lot about what you are getting into before you even hear the song, it is an inward journey of hardship and self realization.

“Veteran of the Psychic Wars” opens with drums like a military march, and very quickly it is joined by the synth keyboard with strange echoing calls. With these two sounds the two married themes are presented, war and the supernatural.

The very first opening line is thus:

“You're seeing now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars,”

A thousand. A thousand psychic wars. The song title implied plural, but a thousand? That is a lot of wars. This song is already intense after only a single lyrical sentence.

I also really like this line:

“All the stars are on the inside.”

The chorus introduces all sorts of potential interpretations:

“Don't let these shakes go on!
It's time we had a break from it,
It's time we had some leave.
We've been living in a place,
We've been eating up our brains.
Oh please don't let these shakes go on!”

It was at this point in the song, on my first listen, that I began to really wonder what this song was truly about. It could be literal. These soldiers with psychic powers could be causing real damage to one and another’s brains, and the post dramatic stress of such an unorthodox, and perhaps intimate, sort of warfare could very believably leave the survivors with shakes. But this could also be a song about deep introspection, with the greater depth one soul searches, the more lost in their own thoughts they become. This second imagining of this song’s meaning fits comfortably with the use of psychedelic drugs, which were likely used to assist in the creative writing process.

I think my favorite line is this one:

“Wounds are all I'm made of!”

Once again marrying the two themes, this dark line introducing the final verse works perfectly for both. The literal wounds of a soldier dominate his memories and personality, which is made all the more harrowing when the wounds are from mind damaging psychic attacks. Or it works just as well to describe the exhausted philosophical introvert, voyaging into the violent recesses of their inner most thoughts; presumably with additional guidance from mind altering drugs.

As much as I like the idea of “Veteran of the Psychic Wars” being about a journey into one’s inner self, I think I prefer the wacky concept of psychic soldiers engaging in some indescribable war across the cosmos, battling alien psychics with projected thoughts, and in that vast infinite battlefield, the war just goes on forever and it is nigh impossible to get any sort of break from it. That is a wild science fiction tale in waiting, the stuff of progress rock dreams. Especially drug induces dreams.

The Blue Oyster Cult has always been a highly respected band, but most people are unaware of the power of their song lists. Like any great band, the more you look into their work the more you discover just how great they are. For me, there was never any surprises about the quality of Blue Oyster Cult’s music, but the style, was just what I wanted from them, even if I did not know it ahead of time.

Until next month, keep on rocking in the free world.

- King of Braves

P.S.

“Veteran of the Psychic Wars” was on the animated movie “Heavy Metal” soundtrack, because of course it was.