Deep Purple Space Truckin is the song that closes Machine Head at four and a half minutes in the studio and then becomes a twenty-minute monster in concert, the track that sent a copy of the album into actual space on board the Space Shuttle Columbia.
Deep Purple Machine Head (1972) — the album that closes with Space Truckin
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▼ Quick Navigation
- What Is Deep Purple Space Truckin
- The Batman Theme That Started the Riff
- Ian Gillan’s 1950s Sci-Fi Lyrics
- How Deep Purple Space Truckin Was Recorded
- The Twenty-Minute Live Monster
- The Child in Time Riff Inside Space Truckin
- The Made in Japan Version
- Deep Purple Space Truckin Goes to Actual Space
- The Space Shuttle Columbia and Steve Morse
- Iron Maiden, Ace Frehley, and the Covers
- People Also Ask
- Watch Deep Purple Space Truckin Live 1972
- Deep Purple Space Truckin Legacy
- You Might Also Like
- Get Machine Head on Amazon
What Is Deep Purple Space Truckin
Deep Purple Space Truckin is the seventh and final track on Machine Head, released March 30, 1972.
The studio version runs 4 minutes and 34 seconds, making it one of the shorter tracks on the album.
In concert it regularly stretched to twenty minutes, and on some nights it reached thirty.
The song is credited to all five Mk II members: Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice.
Deep Purple Space Truckin was inspired by space travel, written during a period when the Apollo moon missions had captured the imagination of the entire world.
The Batman Theme That Started the Deep Purple Space Truckin Riff
Ritchie Blackmore revealed in the Classic Albums documentary about Machine Head that Space Truckin began with a riff inspired by the Batman TV programme theme, composed by Neal Hefti.
Specifically, Blackmore was drawn to the half-step riff movement in the Batman theme’s refrain.
He took that movement, pushed it through a Marshall stack, and asked Ian Gillan if he could write lyrics over it.
The rest of the song grew from that starting point.
The connection between a 1966 television theme and a 1972 hard rock track is one of the more unexpected origin stories in the Deep Purple catalog.
Nobody listening to Space Truckin in 1972 would have made that connection, and Blackmore was not advertising it.
It is the kind of detail that only emerges decades later when the people involved start talking about how things were actually made.
Ian Gillan’s 1950s Sci-Fi Deep Purple Space Truckin Lyrics
Ian Gillan drew the lyrics of Deep Purple Space Truckin from the science fiction films and novels he consumed on the road while the band was touring.
He was a fan of 1950s science fiction, the era of rocket ships, alien planets, and interstellar adventure.
The lyrics place the band on Venus, Mars, and beyond: they have had luck on Venus, always had a ball on Mars, and are now space truckin around the stars.
The reference to the Canaveral moonstop connects the fantasy to the real Apollo program that had put humans on the moon just three years before the song was recorded.
Gillan’s approach was playful rather than philosophical.
He was not making a statement about space exploration.
He was having fun with the imagery while Blackmore and Lord did the serious musical work around him.
How Deep Purple Space Truckin Was Recorded
Space Truckin was recorded in December 1971 at the Grand Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland, using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio.
The band had originally planned to record in the Montreux Casino, but it burned down during a Frank Zappa concert the night before recording was due to begin.
That fire inspired Smoke on the Water and forced the entire Machine Head album into a hotel.
Space Truckin was among the earlier tracks completed during those sessions, along with Lazy and Pictures of Home.
The song’s studio version is relatively compact, with only brief solos from Blackmore and Lord compared to the extended versions they would develop on stage.
Ian Paice’s drumming is the album version’s showcase element, driving the track with the kind of relentless groove that made him one of the era’s most respected rock drummers.
The Twenty-Minute Live Monster
Deep Purple Space Truckin was the song that became the band’s greatest live vehicle during the peak years of the Mk II lineup.
What begins as a four-and-a-half-minute studio track regularly expanded to twenty minutes in concert and sometimes reached thirty.
Blackmore and Lord used the framework of the song to launch extended improvisations that bore little resemblance to anything on the record.
The extended live version incorporated a long instrumental section originally drawn from Mandrake Root, a track from the band’s first album, which gradually evolved into a full showcase for Jon Lord’s keyboard work.
Space Truckin became the concert closer, the final statement of every Deep Purple show during the Machine Head era.
Audiences knew that when Space Truckin started, the band was going to stretch it until they were ready to stop, and nobody left early.
The Child in Time Riff Hidden Inside Deep Purple Space Truckin
One detail that separates Deep Purple fans from casual listeners is the presence of the Child in Time riff inside the live version of Space Truckin.
During the extended instrumental section of the live performances, the band would quote the main riff from Child in Time, acknowledging the connection between the two songs’ improvisational spirit.
This kind of internal cross-referencing between songs was characteristic of how Deep Purple approached live performance: the setlist was a conversation, not a series of isolated pieces.
The Made in Japan Live Version of Deep Purple Space Truckin
The live version of Space Truckin on Made in Japan, recorded in Osaka in August 1972, runs 19 minutes and 54 seconds.
The entire fourth side of the original double LP was devoted to this single performance.
It is widely considered one of the greatest extended live rock performances ever recorded.
Blackmore’s guitar, Lord’s organ, and the rhythm section of Glover and Paice sustain interest across twenty minutes without a moment that feels unnecessary.
The Made in Japan Space Truckin is where the song’s true identity lives.
The studio version introduced it; the live version defined it.
Deep Purple Space Truckin Goes to Actual Space
Space Truckin is one of the very few rock songs to have literally traveled to outer space.
NASA Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla took a copy of the Machine Head album with her on board the Space Shuttle Columbia on its STS-107 mission in 2003.
Space Truckin was played as a wake-up call for the Red Team crew on Flight Day 3 of the mission, specifically in honor of Chawla.
Chawla had met Deep Purple guitarist Steve Morse and was a fan of the band.
That personal connection between an astronaut and a rock guitarist sent Machine Head into orbit fifty-one years after it was recorded in a hotel corridor in Switzerland.
The Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster and Steve Morse
The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry on February 1, 2003, killing all seven crew members including Kalpana Chawla.
Steve Morse, who had met Chawla personally, was deeply affected by her death.
He wrote a song called Contact Lost, which appeared on Deep Purple’s 2003 album Bananas, in memory of Chawla and her fellow crew members.
The fact that Space Truckin had been played in space as a wake-up call for Chawla gave Contact Lost an extra dimension of meaning.
A song about space travel had gone to space, and the person who took it there did not come home.
Iron Maiden, Ace Frehley, and the Deep Purple Space Truckin Covers
Iron Maiden covered Space Truckin for the tribute album Re-Machined, released in 2012 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Machine Head.
The choice of Space Truckin by Iron Maiden says something about the song’s reputation among the bands it influenced: it is the track that showed what hard rock could do when given room to expand.
Ace Frehley covered the song on his 2020 album Origins Volume 2, joining a list of covers that also includes American thrash metal band Overkill, who recorded it for their 1999 covers album Coverkill.
Space Truckin also appeared in the film Lords of Dogtown, the documentary Warren Miller’s Dynasty, and the video game Guitar Hero: Van Halen.
A 1997 remix of the song was featured in the first and last episodes of the television series Ash vs Evil Dead.
People Also Ask About Deep Purple Space Truckin
What album is Space Truckin on?
Space Truckin is the seventh and final track on Machine Head, released March 30, 1972. A live version occupying the entire fourth side of the original double LP appears on Made in Japan.
How long is Space Truckin?
The studio version runs 4 minutes and 34 seconds. The Made in Japan live version runs 19 minutes and 54 seconds. Some concert versions reached 30 minutes.
What inspired the Space Truckin riff?
Ritchie Blackmore was inspired by the half-step riff movement in the Batman TV programme theme, composed by Neal Hefti. He asked Ian Gillan to write lyrics over it and the song grew from there.
Did Space Truckin actually go to space?
Yes. NASA astronaut Kalpana Chawla took the Machine Head album on board the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003. Space Truckin was played as a wake-up call for her crew on Flight Day 3.
Who covered Space Truckin?
Iron Maiden covered it for the Machine Head 40th anniversary tribute album. Ace Frehley covered it on Origins Volume 2 in 2020. Overkill covered it in 1999.
Watch Deep Purple Space Truckin Live 1972
Deep Purple Space Truckin Legacy
Deep Purple Space Truckin is the song that closes Machine Head and then becomes something entirely different in concert.
Its studio form is a tight, punchy hard rock track built on a riff inspired by a Batman theme.
Its live form is one of the most extended and celebrated improvisational performances in rock history.
The fact that it physically traveled to space on board the Columbia makes it one of the most literally extraordinary rock songs ever recorded.
Steve Morse’s Contact Lost connected that space journey to personal grief and gave the song’s legacy a dimension that no amount of critical praise could have provided.
Deep Purple Space Truckin is the song that proved a four-minute studio track can become something limitless when the right band plays it live, and nothing in the fifty-plus years since it was recorded has changed that.
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Get Machine Head on Amazon
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Machine Head
Highway Star to Space Truckin: the complete Machine Head experience
Number one UK album in 1972
One of the greatest hard rock albums ever made
Made in Japan
The 20-minute Space Truckin live version on one record
Side 4 is entirely Space Truckin live in Osaka
The greatest hard rock live album ever recorded
Fireball
The album that preceded Machine Head to number one in the UK
Strange Kind of Woman, Fireball, and more
25th Anniversary Edition
The Very Best of Deep Purple
Space Truckin, Highway Star, Smoke on the Water and more
The complete picture across every era
Remastered and essential
Deep Purple Space Truckin started as a Batman theme, became a four-minute studio track, expanded into a twenty-minute live epic, and eventually traveled to actual space on the Space Shuttle Columbia, which is a more extraordinary journey than any song could have planned for itself.