Eve Of The War
Composer(s): Jeff Wayne
Performer(s): Jeff Wayne
and multiple other artists



The Coming of the Martians

The Eve Of The War
Journalist: 
No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century 
that human affairs were being watch from the timeless worlds of space 
No one could have dreamed we were being scrutinized 
as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water 
Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets and yet, across the gulf of space 
minds immeasurably superior to our regarded this Earth with envious eyes 
and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us

At midnite on the twelfth of August, a huge mass of luminous gas erupted from Mars and sped towards Earth 
Across two hundred million miles of void, invisibly hurtling towards us 
came the first of the missiles that were to bring so much calamity to Earth 
As I watched, there was another jet of gas 
it was another missle, starting on its way

And that's how it was for the next the next ten nights 
A flare, spurting out from Mars - bright green, drawing a green mist behind it - a beautiful, but somehow disturbing sight 
Ogilvy, the astronomer, assured me we were in no danger 
he was convinced there could be no living thing on that remote, forbidding planet

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one," he said

"The changes of anything coming from Mars are a million to one-but still they come!"

Journalist: 
Then came the night the first missile approached Earth 
It was thought to be an ordinary falling star, but the next day there was a huge crater in the middle of the Common 
and Ogilvy came to examine what lay there: a cylinder, thirty yards across, glowing hot...
and with faint sounds of movement coming from with

Suddenly the top began moving, rotating, unscrewing, and Ogilvy feared there was a man inside, trying to escape 
He rushed to the cylinder, but the intense heat stopped him before he could burn himself on the metal

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one," he said

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one - but still they come!"

It seems totally incredible to me now that everyone spent that evening as though it were just like any other

From the railway station came the sound of shunting trains, ringing the rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance

It all seemed so safe and tranquil