23. Wedding Song
Performed by young girl of Huancavelica. Recorded by John and Penny Cohen in Huancavelica, Peru, 1964. ‘Song of Marriage’ from the recording entitled Mountain Music of Peru, Vol. 1, SFW40020, courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. ℗ © 1991. 24. Liu Shui (Flowing Streams) Performed by Guan Pinghu (guqin). ‘Liushui’ by Guan Pinghu from the recording China, UNES08071, courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. ℗ © 1985.
25. Bhairavi: Jaat Kahan Ho
Performed by Kesarbai Kerkar (vocals) with harmonium and able accompaniment. Recorded in Bombay, India, April 1953. Silva Screen Music America.
26. Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground
Written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson (slide guitar, vocals) in Dallas, Texas, on 3 December 1927. Courtesy of Legacy Recordings.
27. String Quartet No. 13 in B-Flat Major, Opus 130: V. Cavatina Composed by Ludwig Van Beethoven. Performed by Budapest String Quartet. Recorded at the Library of Congress, Washington DC on 7 April 1960. Produced under licence from Bridge Records.
Please note: You will see that I have put President Carter’s message and the typed names at the start of my list of photographs on the Voyager Golden Record. In fact, no one seems sure exactly where they ended up. If it was before the main picture sequence, it would mess with the calibration circle. If it was at the end, it would spoil the musical transition. Ozma Records used the original master tapes to create their new edition of the Golden Record. Watch Ron Barry’s decode video (boingboing.net/2017/09/05/how-to-decode-the-images-on-th.html) and you can see that this tape’s audio includes the complete sequence of photographs, but is without those governmental extras. Apparently there were no other tapes in the Sony Archive with any image audio. So there are numerous possibilities. It could be that the extra pictures were provided on a separate tape, a tape which has since been lost, and these were simply slotted into the Golden Record before or after the main picture sequence. This would slightly spoil either the calibration circle or the musical transition but, short of time, it had to be done. Another likely explanation is that Carter’s message and allied names were placed right at the start, before Kurt’s spoken words. A presidential message to the universe, albeit in this odd paper-to-slide-to-video-to-audio format, would seem a fitting way to start the Voyager Golden Record. The other possibility is that they were slotted within the main sequence, but this version of the final picture audio edit is simply missing from Sony’s archives. The only way to resolve this question might be to play Tim and Vlado’s original lacquers that survive at JPL Archives.
The stylus: A cartridge and stylus was mounted inside the cover next to the record. According to John Casani, this wasn’t a purpose-built, space-proof NASA-branded needle, but an off-the-shelf, shop-bought model. He estimates they would have cost no more than $20 for the pair. Tim can’t remember the brand, but he thinks they would have been more like $80 each, and were definitely ceramic cartridges, rather than magnetic. ‘One always avoids putting anything magnetic on a spacecraft without good reason,’ he says.
Notes
1 Tracklist courtesy of Ozma Records.
Appendix B: The Cornell Greetings
Here are some, but not all, of the translated quotes that made it onto the Golden Records:
‘May all be very well.’ (Akkadian)
‘Greetings to our friends in the stars. We wish that we will meet you someday.’ (Arabic)
‘Peace.’ (Aramaic)
‘To all those who exist in the universe, greetings.’ (Armenian)
‘Hello! Let there be peace everywhere.’ (Bengali)
‘Are you well?’ (Burmese)
‘Hi. How are you? Wish you peace, health and happiness.’ (Cantonese)
‘Dear friends, we wish you the best.’ (Czech)
‘Heartfelt greetings to everyone.’ (Dutch)
‘Hello, everybody.’ (French)
‘Heartfelt greetings to all.’ (German)
‘Greetings to you, whoever you are. We come in friendship to those who are friends.’ (Greek)
‘Peace.’ (Hebrew)
‘Greetings from the inhabitants of this world.’ (Hindi)
‘We are sending greetings in the Hungarian language to all peace-loving beings in the universe.’ (Hungarian)
‘Hello? How are you?’ (Japanese)
‘How are you?’ (Korean)
‘Wishing you a peaceful future from the earthlings.’ (Nepali)
‘We greet you, great ones. We wish you longevity.’ (Nguni)
‘How are all you people of other planets?’ (Nyanja)
‘Greetings to the inhabitants of the universe from the third planet, Earth, of the star Sun.’ (Oriya)
‘Hello to the residents of far skies.’ (Persian)
‘Peace and happiness to all’ (Portuguese)
‘Hello to everyone. We are happy here and you be happy there.’ (Rajasthani)
‘Greetings! I welcome you!’ (Russian)
‘We greet you, O great ones.’ (Sotho)
‘Hello and greetings to all.’ (Spanish)
‘Greetings from a computer programmer in the little university town of Ithaca on the planet Earth.’ (Swedish)
‘Dear Turkish-speaking friends, may the honours of the morning be upon your heads.’ (Turkish)
‘We are sending greetings from our world, wishing you happiness, goodness, good health and many years.’ (Ukrainian)
‘Good health to you now and forever.’ (Welsh)
‘Best wishes to you all.’ (Wu)
Acknowledgements
My first thank you is to Vanessa. Without you, none of this makes any sense. Thanks for putting up with my mood swings and endless talking. Thanks to Genevieve (8) for creating your own Golden Record for the May 2018 Horniman Primary School science exhibition. Thanks to Rupert (13) and Florence (9) too, for asking pointed questions that quickly made me realise I needed to find out a lot more. Thanks to Kate, my middle sister, for unwavering support and advice, and Annabel, my eldest sister, for being the trailblazer I will always look up to as I did when I was 10. Thanks to Mummy and Papa for buying me that telescope and the Cure tickets.
Thanks to everyone at Bloomsbury – in particular Jim Martin for liking the idea and Anna MacDiarmid and Charlotte Atyeo for making it good. David Pescovitz was amazingly kind and supportive. He put me in touch with Tim, Jon, the guys at Colorado Video, and was very helpful answering lots of knotty technical questions I fired his way, sharing information, data, images that he and the Ozma Records team had uncovered. I suspect the Ozma Records contribution to the lore and history of the Voyager record will be remembered for a very long time.
Thanks to Frank, to Ann and Ann’s people, who helped find windows in her busy schedule, to Tim for putting up with my asinine follow-up queries, to Amahl for helping co-ordinate my talk with Frank and for answering my questions about her own involvement, and to Jon for kindly sharing his manuscript. Thanks to Julie Cooper at JPL Archives, and to Stephen Dalton, Vlado Meller, George Helou, Jay Pasachoff, Wendy Gradison, Laurie Spiegel, Wyndham Hannaway, Judd Johnson, Mari Noda and Andrij Cehelsky.
Index
Adams, Ansel here, here, here
Ahl, Frederick M. here
Alien Encounters here
Allen, Max here
animals here, here
animal sounds here, here
Antarctica here
Apollo missions here, here
Arden, Shirley here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Armstrong, Louis here, here, here, here, here, here
‘Melancholy Blues’ here
Army Ballistic Missile Agency here
Asimov, Isaac here, here, here
Atchley, Dana here
Atlantic here
Azerrad, Lawrence here, here
Bach, Johann Sebastian here, here, here, here, here, here, here
&nb
sp; Brandenburg Concerto here
Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C major here, here
Balkanska, Valya ‘Izlel E Delyu Haydutin’ here, here
Bane, Don here
Baratheli, Sandro here
Barham, Roscoe here
Battlestar Galactica here
BBC here
Beatles here
Beethoven, Ludvig von here, here, here, here, here
Cavatina here, here, here
Fifth Symphony here, here, here
Bernstein, Carl here, here
Berry, Chuck ‘Johnny B. Goode’ here, here, here, here, here, here
birds here, here, here, here, here, here
‘Birth’ here
Bluebook here
blues here
Boettcher, Barbara here, here
Boriakoff, Valentin here, here, here, here, here
Botto, Alan here
Bronfenbrenner, Michael here
Brown, Robert E. here, here, here, here
Buck Rogers in the hereth Century here
Bullowa, Margaret here
Burgess, Eric here
Burroughs, Edgar Rice here
Calvin, Melvin here
Cameron, A. G. W. here, here, here
Campbell, John W. here
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) here
Carlyle, Thomas here
Carson, Johnny here
Carter, Jimmy here, here, here, here
Casani, John here, here, here, here, here
CBS here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
CBS Columbia here, here, here, here, here, here
CBS New York here
Cehelsky, Andrij here, here
CETI (Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence) here, here
‘Chakrulo’ here
Chicago Sun-Times here
Christian Science Monitor here
Christian, Charlie here
circles here
Clarke, Arthur C. here, here
Cocconi, Giuseppe here
Colorado Video here, here, here, here, here
Coltrane, John Giant Steps here
communication sounds here
Cooney, Joan Ganz here
copyright here
Cornell Chronicle here, here
Cornell Daily Sun here
Cosmos here, here, here, here, here, here
Cott, Jonathan here, here
cover here, here
Cowell, Henry here
Cox, Brian here
cutting here
finished product here
hand-etched inscription here
Dalton, Stephen here
Daly, Tim here, here
Dave, Radhekant here
Davidson, Keay here, here, here, here
Dethloff, Henry C. Voyager’s Grand Tour here, here
DNA here, here, here, here
Doñana: Spain’s Wildlife Wilderness here
Drake, Frank here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
converting pictures into sound here
Drake Equation here, here
‘Foundations of the Voyager Record’ here, here
hydrogen key here
Voyager Golden Record here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Drake, Nadia here
Druyan, Ann here, here, here, here, here, here
Famous Broken Heart, A here
music choices here
Sagan, Carl here, here, here, here, here
Durant, Fred here
Duvelle, Charles here
Eames, Charles and Ray here
Earth here, here, here
Eaton, Cyrus here
Eckelmann, Hermann here, here, here, here, here, here
Eiffel Tower here
electronic music here
Elektra Sound Archives here, here
Encyclopedia Galactica here
Ephron, Nora here, here
Explorer 1 here, here
Faith Bible Church here
‘Family of Man’ here
Faraday, Michael here
Farthest, The here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Fermi paradox here
Fermi, Enrico here
Ferris, Tim here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Coming of Age in the Milky Way here
Fifth Assault, The here
Red Limit, The here, here
Fessler, Steller here
‘Fire and Speech’ here
Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), China here
Flandro, Gary here
‘Flowing Streams’ here
Folkways Records here, here
‘Foods of the World’ here
‘Footsteps, Heartbeats and Laughter’ here, here
Ford, Gerald here
Frutkin, Arnold here, here
Fuchs, Vivian here
Galileo here
genitals here, here, here
vulva here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Gerard, Gil here
Gilbert, Douglas R. C. S. Lewis: Images of His World here
Gluck, David here
Gold, Thomas here
Golden Gate Bridge here
Goodall, Jane here
Gordon, Willam E. here
Gould, Glenn here
Gradison, Wendy here, here, here, here
‘Grape Picker’ here
Great Wall of China here
greetings here
recording here
UN Greeting here, here, here
Gupta, Mool C. here
Guthrie, Woody here
Hammarskjöld, Dag here
Hannaway, Wyndham here, here, here
Harrison, George here, here
Harun, Ilyas here
Harvey, David here
Haystack Observatory here
Heinlein, Robert here, here, here
Helou, George here, here, here
Hester, George The Classic Nude here
High Altitude Observatory, Colorado here
Hillary, Edmund here
Hoagland, Richard here
Holborne, Anthony ‘The Fairie Round’ here, here, here
Hoyle, Sir Fred here
Huang, Su-Shu here
humans here
different races here
human anatomy here, here, here
hydrogen key here, here
ICARUS here, here, here
Ideas 60
insects here, here, here
Iovine, Jimmy here, here, here
Jalilov, Kamil Muğam here
James G. Lee Record Processing Center here
Johnson, Blind Willie ‘Dark Was the Night’ here
Johnson, Judd here, here
Journal of Applied Communication Research here
Jupiter here, here, here, here, here
Kalahari bushmen here
Kapp, Mickey here, here
Kepler, Johannes here
Kerkar, Kesarbai here
Jaat Kahan Ho here
Khare, Bishun here
Kim, Edward H. here
Kraemer, Robert here, here
Krimigis, Tom here
Ku, Liang here
LaFrance, Adrienne here, here
languages sequence here, here
laughter here
Lead Belly here
Leeming, Joe here
Lennon, John here, here, here
Leonian, Philip here
Library of Congress here, here, here, here, here
Lilly, John C. here
Litronic Industries here
Lomax, Alan here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Lomberg, Jon here, here, here, here, here, here
Cosmic Connection, The here
picture sequence here, here
Los Angeles Times here
M13 here
Mahi musicians Cengunmé here,
here
Margulis, Lynn here
Mariner here
Mariner 1 here
Mariner here here, here
Mars here, here, here, here, here
Mathews, Max here, here
Mbuti ‘Alima Song’ here, here
McDivitt, James here
Meeks, M.L. here
Meller, Vladimir here, here, here, here
Menn, Lise here
Mera, Ruby here
Miller, Wayne here
Minecraft here
Mittler, Dan here, here, here
mixing and mastering here, here
mixtapes here
Voyager here, here
MJS here (Mariner-Jupiter-Saturn 1977) here, here, here
Moore, David here
Moore, Patrick here, here
Morrison, Philip here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Morse code here, here, here
Morton, Jelly Roll here
‘Mother and Child’ here
Mozart, Amadeus here, here, here, here, here, here
Magic Flute ‘Queen of the Night’ here
Mukherjee, Subrata here
Munrow, David here
Murmurs of Earth here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Brown, Robert here
Drake, Frank here, here, here, here
Druyan, Ann here, here, here, here
Ferris, Tim here, here, here, here, here
Lomberg, Jon here, here
Oliver, Bernard here
Sagan, Carl here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Sagan, Linda Salzman here
Murray, Bruce here, here
music here, here
Chinese music here
choosing the music here
compiling the sound essay here
images in the picture sequence here
popular music here
recording here
sequencing here
world music here
‘Music of the Spheres’ here
NASA here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Grand Tour here, here
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) here, here, here, here, here, here
LAGEOS (Laser Geodynamic Satellite) here, here
Voyager Golden Record here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Voyager Golden Record: Soundcloud here, here, here
National Air and Space Museum here
National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) here, here, here, here, here, here, here
National Geographic Society here, here
National Geographic here, here, here, here, here, here, here
The Vinyl Frontier Page 28