Magnu horse with golden mane
I want your help yet once again
Walk not the Earth but fly through space
As lightning flash or thunder’s race
Swift as the arrow from the bow
Come to me so that no one can know,
Sunbeams are my shafts to kill,
All men who dare imagine ill…
A few things you should really know about me before I start off waxing poetic about Magnu:
- I saw Motörhead perform in September 2015 at Pompano Beach, Florida
- Three months later, the legend Lemmy Kilmister passed away at the age of 70
- Eight years later, I sat and did a shot of Jack Daniels at the Rainbow in Hollywood, California, right at Lemmy’s sacred spot at the outdoor bar.
- We managed to shmooze our way into the secret Vampire’s Loft. You know, the upstairs haunt where Alice Cooper, John Lennon, Micky Dolenz, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, and every other nocturnal deity used to party in the 70s.
- Hawkwind’s Warrior on the Edge of Time — on which Lemmy played bass and sang here and there — is one of my favorite all-time albums.
What does that have to do with the price of tea in Shanghai, you ask? Hard to say. But here we are, ten years out from Lemmy’s passing, smack dab in the Halloween season, and I can’t believe it took twelve years to bring Magnu to our esteemed Spooky Season Playlist.
Hawkwind worked with legendary fantasy author Michael Moorcock on several occasions; the titular “Warrior” is a reference to his Eternal Champions saga: beings who share one soul across infinite worlds, reborn again and again to fight for balance between Law and Chaos. They engage with otherworldly forces, collapsing realities, and doomed realities, as the same archetypal being in multiple variations. An existential crisis in which they (or it) must bring balance to Law and Chaos.
It’s all very wonderful stuff. The adventures of Elric of Melnibone, Dorian Hawkmoon, Erekose, the Von Beks, and more reads as magnificently as you’d imagine, so go seek them out.
But for now, let’s talk Hawkwind and Magnu.
Hawkwind was one of the premier space/psychedelic rock bands of their era, combining exotic rock soundscapes with fantastical lyrics. And it worked. Something about their sound evoked the cosmos splitting open, the universe screaming something primal, and your brain just smiling as it liquefies.
Magnu, from their landmark (and Hokeyboy favorite) 1975 album Warrior on the Edge of Time, is what happens when a band stops playing music and starts channeling pure cosmic power. You don’t just listen to Magnu; you enter it. Become one with it. A nine minute trance of crashing hard rock and primal chanting that feels right at home extradimensional pagan bar mitzvah or something.
The thing starts off almost gently, rushing winds like a shimmer of darkness just waking up to being. But then Magnu grows and expands until it’s less a performance and more a possession. The bass pounds like hooves on an unseen plain, the guitars howl like solar winds, and the rhythm takes over whatever fragile sense of time and distance you thought you had. We’re talking crushing rock riffs, Arabian melodies, primal percussive beats, and those haunting, cosmic vocals.
You see, Magnu himself is a golden-maned cosmic horse of immense power. The hero, as vocalized by songwriter Dave Brock, summons the eponymous stallion to aid him in his battle against the forces of darkness, an endless skirmish that won’t cease “til we diminish by the reign of night”. Brock repeats that line throughout the song, a hypnotic trance that stretches and suspends the listener over the edge of eternity.
Magnu feels like an alchemical summoning, a sorcerous enchantment, a devotion to some radiant equine god of motion and fire. The entire feel of the song isn’t terrifying; it’s overwhelming. A reminder that fear and awe are sometimes the same emotion. But courage can transcend both.
And it freakin’ rocks yo.
Magnu isn’t horror. It’s revelation. And revelation can be the scariest thing of all.
RIP Lemmy.
Deceit that fears the light of day
Fly from the glory of my ray
Good minds open and take new light
Until we diminish by the reign of night
Until we diminish by the reign of night
Until we diminish by the reign of night…
