Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft

The one thing I try to understand about every cover version that I've featured on this blog is the reason why it was done. Was it something as simple as 'I just liked the song'? Was it an attempt to either studiously replicate or totally renovate the original? Or, was it due to entirely different motivations? But on occasion, once I start turning over a few rocks, I find that things go further down the rabbit hole than I anticipated. Such is today's journey into the past, and possibly, into the future as well.

Tricky Dick with The Carpenters at the White House in 1973

The Carpenters were, along with Bread, their fellow purveyors of pillow-soft Pop, one of the early 70's pioneers of what we now know as 'Lite Rock'. To those who were part of the late 60's counterculture, the high popularity of the music made by siblings Richard and Karen Carpenter was taken as musical proof that the revolution was dead, gone, and had not been televised. The Carpenters hailed from Connecticut; often perceived as one of the WASP-iest states, and had broken through to superstardom on the coattails of a reconfigured jingle that had been written for a bank commercial. Their music was seen as so completely harmless that then-President Richard Nixon invited them to the White House to perform for the visiting German chancellor. Nixon called them "Young America at its best". Safe as milk.

John Henry Bonham!

But the multi-demographic popularity of The Carpenters belied their extraordinary musical gifts. Not only did Karen Carpenter have one of the richest and most identifiable voices in Pop history, she was also a fairly accomplished drummer who, in 1973, actually finished ahead of John Bonham in Playboy magazine's music poll for Best Drummer! Bonham was reportedly incensed by this news and is quoted as saying "She couldn't last ten minutes with a Zeppelin number!" Today, Richard Carpenter is widely regarded as nothing less than one of the greatest music arrangers of his generation. The Carpenters also had access to some very good songs by acknowledged masters like Burt Bacharach and Paul Williams, which helped them score a long string of timeless hits in the early 70's.

But time marches on, and the lighter sound of the 70's evolved from AM Pop into singer/songwriters like Jackson Browne, James Taylor and Carole King. Those who weren't partying to boogie-fied Hard Rock were enjoying more radio friendly tunes from the likes of Elton John, Fleetwood Mac and Steve Miller. At the same time, an onslaught of Disco acts like the remodeled Bee Gees, Donna Summer, and KC and the Sunshine Band had begun their takeover of the charts, which they would dominate through the later 70's. During this time, Richard Carpenter was having difficulties with a prescription drug habit and Karen would struggle with anorexia and likely some other issues as well. In 1977, with their squeaky-clean style long out of fashion and their record sales falling off the charts like dead flies, The Carpenters took an adventitiously strange left turn into some high level weirdness.

In the music business, when sales of a formerly popular act falter, the suits don't blame the artist; they go after the producer first. The producer in this case, was Richard Carpenter. But such was the shift in the taste of the ever-fickle public that, at that time, no outside producer wanted to work with The Carpenters! So the suits caved and permitted Richard to continue producing the recordings, but demanded that he turn in something very different. According to Richard Carpenter himself, "Not one major producer would sign on. Radio was not quite as friendly at that time to our type of sound and to be honest, my track record on the whole was a tough act to follow. Accordingly, I remained producer, but I did try to approach this new project from a different angle, hence my selection of songs for this album made 'Passage' a bit of a departure from our previous recordings."

To say that "Passage" was a departure is something of an understatement. It's the kind of change-up that usually does little else but confuse fans. Even The Carpenters' familiar swirly logo was ditched for the cover art. Opening the album was a Michael Franks tune with the Zappa-esque title of "B'wana, She No Home" that only compounded matters. But it was the album closer that raised plenty of eyebrows.

US picture sleeve for the 'Calling Occupants' 45

On the official Carpenters website, Richard Carpenter has this to say about the song, "Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft (The Recognized Anthem Of World Contact Day)": "I heard this song on the debut album of Klaatu, a talented group of Canadian studio musicians who were heavily inspired by The Beatles, and named after the purposeful alien in the sci-fi thriller, 'The Day The Earth Stood Still'. Always looking for something novel, we decided on it for 'Passage' and ended up immersing ourselves, and 160 musicians and singers, in the biggest 'single' recording we ever attempted. Initially I did not think of this track as a single, but coincidentally, 'Star Wars' had been released, and was all the rage, not long after we recorded 'Occupants'. As a result, I allowed myself to be persuaded into releasing an edited version as a single. It did moderately well in the U.S., but, to our pleasant surprise, went Top 10 in the U.K., and stayed there for two months. Incidentally, there was no actual 'World Contact Day', as we've answered many times. Maybe in the future…". Here's The Carpenters' epic, big budget recording.

As Carpenter noted, "Calling Occupants..." was originally recorded in 1976 by a Canadian group called Klaatu, who named themselves in honor of the messianic alien in the 1951 film, "The Day The Earth Stood Still". But the anonymous nature of the band members and 'heavily inspired' sound of the music soon gave rise to a widespread rumor that Klaatu was really The Beatles; reformed and recording under a pseudonym. These suspicions weren't totally unfounded by the public either.

The rumor was originally concocted by Providence Journal reviewer Steve Smith in February 1977. stating in an article that the album might be an anonymous project by The Beatles themselves. The rumor turned into a global phenomenon with Beatle fans being fed 'clues' by radio stations, Capitol Records, and print media alike.

While all this was happening, Klaatu themselves were in England, recording their second album. They were somewhat aware of the situation, but did not take it entirely seriously, possibly because the UK's New Musical Express famously published an article on 'The Beatles are Klaatu' theory under the snarky title "Deaf Idiot Journalist Starts Beatle Rumour". Meanwhile, Capitol Records, who controlled The Beatles' music in the US, tried to make as much scratch out of the rumor as possible, by issuing ambiguously worded promotional statements that failed to make the band's identity entirely clear. The dust was soon settled when a program director at WWDC in Washington, D.C., checked the records at the U.S. Copyright Office and uncovered the band members' real names. Suffice it to say they were not John, Paul, George or Ringo. Well, there was a John, but... oh, just have a listen.

The band, Klaatu: John Woloschuck, Terry Draper and Dee Long

In an interview with Mary MacDonald Rival, John Woloschuk and Terry Draper of Klaatu discussed The Carpenters' recording of "Calling Occupants...".

Mary: How did The Carpenters come to record your song?

John: As we found out later, their guitar player discovered our first album during that 'Beatle Rumour Thingy' and brought it to their attention.

Terry: Wasn't there something Richard Carpenter said about "The 3 Bs… The Beatles, Beach Boys and Burt Bacharach, instead of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms…" or something to that effect?

John: I seem to recall something like that. Anyway, they were much taken with our endeavor and decided to record "Calling Occupants" with a full orchestra and choir, much to our delight. Actually, Terry and I were both fans of The Carpenters long before this. Karen's beautiful voice and those lush arrangements and those chromatic chord progressions…

Terry: (singing) "Rainy Days and Mondays always get me-e dowwwwn…"

Mary: So, it's safe to say you like their approach, their cover of your song?

Terry: Actually, we see it, or should I say, we hear it, as the ultimate compliment. This song is unlike anything that The Carpenters had attempted previously and they nailed it. I think their version is more accessible than ours… more mainstream.

So apparently, the boys from Klaatu were happy with how things turned out and everyone lived happily ever after. But wait, there's more! Oh yes, it gets weirder. You'll recall that Richard Carpenter made a point of stating that there was no actual World Contact Day, despite its mention in the subtitle of the song. Apparently, their fans had asked them repeatedly about it, as if Karen and Rich had the answer. But, there was one indeed.

World Contact Day was first declared on March of 1953 by an organization called the International Flying Saucer Bureau, as a day on which all IFSB members would attempt to send a telepathic message into space, theorizing that if both telepathy and alien life were real, a large number of people focusing on an identical piece of text may be able to transmit the message through space. The message which IFSB members focused on in 1953 was: "Calling occupants of interplanetary craft that have been observing our planet Earth. We of IFSB wish to make contact with you. We are your friends, and would like you to make an appearance here on Earth. Your presence before us will be welcomed with the utmost friendship. We will do all in our power to promote mutual understanding between your people and the people of Earth. Please come in peace and help us in our Earthly problems. Give us some sign that you have received our message. Be responsible for creating a miracle here on our planet to wake up the ignorant ones to reality. Let us hear from you. We are your friends." The message is both referenced and quoted by the songwriters of the band Klaatu in their song, "Calling Occupants...". So how could Carpenter not know about all this?

Now, let's go back to the movie "The Day The Earth Stood Still". You'll recall that the movie came out in what year? 1951; two years prior to World Contact Day. In the film, intergalactic emissary Klaatu is injured by the military upon his arrival. Klaatu escapes his guards and lodges at a boarding house, assuming the alias of a Mr. Carpenter(!), the name on a dry cleaners' tag attached to the clothing he borrows. There's a reason for this in the script, but it remains an interesting coincidence. Or is it?

Finally, there's this bit of fodder for the Beatle theorists. On the cover of his 1974 album for Capitol Records, "Goodnight Vienna", Ringo Starr's head was shown superimposed on the body of Klaatu. The connection was fortified by Apple promotional material for the album, such as this button that reads 'Don't Forget: Klaatu Barada Nikto', which is Klaatu's famous missive to his robot, Gort. Klaatu used the phrase to instruct Gort to pilot their spaceship away from Earth, as Klaatu had been mortally wounded. (According to the film's scriptwriters, the implied translation of the phrase is "I die, repair me, do not retaliate".) By the way, Ringo's album title is Liverpool slang for "Let's get out of here". So, there's that.

"Calling Occupants..." would resurface as an intolerably awful cover by Babes In Toyland, on the spotty-at-best 1994 tribute album, "If I Were A Carpenter", and again in 2001, when recordings of The Langley Schools Music Project became a hit with hipsters. Both are worth avoiding by a light year, at least.

Unless you are an obsessive fan or collector, this 2 CD anthology of The Carpenters is all you will ever need or want. It's nicely mastered, thorough, and priced right.

Regarding Klaatu, there's about a dozen releases on the market, but the ones to have are a couple of British import 'two-fers' that together, contain their first 4 albums; 2 on each.

All of the songs that are worth having on Ringo Starr's "Goodnight Vienna" album appear on this nicely comprehensive collection of Ringo's best work. Peace and Love to Ringo, nonetheless.

And in case you've not had the pleasure of viewing the original 1951 version of "The Day The Earth Stood Still", it's now out on Blu-Ray and looking good. Avoid the 2008 Keanu Reeves remake like a snot-infested daycare center. The packaging of both versions is very similar, so read the box carefully.

Goodnight, Vienna!