In the Year 2525

by editor Michele Catalano

We used to spend our summers in upstate New York, in a little town called Roscoe (shout out, Roscoe Diner). My aunt and uncle had a house on Lake Muskoday, a private lake with a bunch of summer houses surrounding it. My parents would stuff us and our gear into their station wagon, and we’d make the three-hour trip sitting in the back of the car, making peace signs to all the cars that were passing us. 

I loved going upstate as much as I hated it. Often, my parents would join us for a weekend, and then leave us kids there with my aunts and cousins for a week or two. I enjoyed a lot of the activities we did, especially when we did arts and crafts, but there were others that I did not want to participate in. Going in the muddy lake with snakes and newts and trout was gross to me. I wore my sneakers into the lake, but that didn’t stop the bottom from feeling squishy and gross; I opted not to swim in it. I hated hooking worms for fishing. I hated the forts my cousin built in the woods because I heard so many stories about the scary things that lived there.

Instead, I would busy myself by digging into the crate of books and magazines that were in the room where I slept. I was eight- or nine-years-old and poring through Mad Magazine, doing the fold-in carefully without understanding most of the concepts. I read about politics and drugs, things way over my head but intriguing to me. It helped pass the time while I pined for my parents and my own bed.

In the corner of the room was a little turntable, something they must have put in the room as an afterthought because there was only one record: a single by Zager & Evans, called “In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus).” I’d heard the song before but never paid much attention to it,as it wasn’t my speed musically (I was probably still into Disney songs at the time), and 2525 seemed such a ridiculous thing to sing about. This was the early ‘70s. 2000 seemed like a year we would never see. It felt excotic and strange just to talk about it as something we would experience one day. Those added extra 525 years took the concept from wonder to something I could not perceive. 

One day, I was bored enough to take an interest in the record. The cousins were on the lake in the boat searching for beaver dams (no, thank you, beavers are scary). The player itself was so cheap and worn that I thought there would be no harm in my using it. So I put on the record, having practiced this ritual at home on my parents’ stereo cabinet—settled into the bean bag chair in the room, and waited to be bored with the novelty of the song.

Instead, I was riveted. 

In the year 2525, if man is still alive

I don’t know if it was Zager or Evans singing, but his voice was a wonder. Deep and affecting, he rang out the words that sent a chill down my spine. It was a foreboding start. 

In the year 3535

Ain’t gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lie

Everything you think, do, and say

Is in the pill you took today

3535 was not a year I could comprehend. It was too distant, too unbelievable. But the thought of the future being like this was so intriguing to me. 

In the year 5555

Your arms hangin’ limp at your sides

Your legs got nothin’ to do

Some machine’s doin’ that for you

I spent a lot of time thinking about this one and the following verses. The future they painted for me was bleak, depressing, scary. But it was also, in a way, thrilling to listen to this record. It was like reading a book about the future. The fact that it was defeating didn’t matter. It was a glimpse into a world I thought I’d never see. How was I to know that a lot of this would actually be true by the time I was an adult?

I listened to that 45 over a dozen times on that trip. While everyone else was playing catch and release with snakes and salamanders, I was sitting in that small bedroom, wondering what the future would be like.

As soon as I got back to Long Island, I asked my mother to take me to the library. I asked the librarian for books about the future. She gave me a few that had predictions, then led me over to the science-fiction section and pointed out some books I might want to read.

I devoured the books the librarian gave me and went back for more when I was done. This time, I went into the young adult section, and after I convinced the librarian that I was capable of reading on that level, she let me have a few simple books.

Zager & Evans had inadvertently turned me into a science-fiction fan with “In the Year 2525.” It opened the door to a vast, exciting, wondrous world with flying cars and robots and cities in space. A lot of these books echoed the song, with tales of an almost uninhabitable future. But I especially loved the books that told me of a future filled with hope and prosperity.

In the year 9595

I’m kinda wonderin’ if man is gonna be alive

He’s taken everything this old earth can give

And he ain’t put back nothing

I thought about this verse a lot in the ensuing years, and I still do. I think of how prescient this song was; it just had the years wrong. I listen to it now, and what intrigued me as a kid, what made me turn to speculative fiction, is just depressing these days. Perhaps we should have taken “In the Year 2525” for the cautionary tale it is, and not just some novelty record.  

Michele is a retired civil servant who now spends her days listening to records.

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