Since its 1993 debut, Phish's performances of this song have been labelled "2001", "Theme from 2001", "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", "Also Sprach Zarathustra", "Also Spracht Zarathustra", "Being There", "Theme from Being There", and "Deodato's Dawn". Most of those are simply wrong. Above all, Phish definitively does not play the theme to 2001, which is strictly Strauss' original composition. They instead play a disco arrangement by Deodato, who used Strauss' original title for his own arrangement. Let me 'splain...

• Nietszche's Zarathustra: Nietszche wrote a book (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) about a man who lived among people for most of his life, went to a mountain cave for ten years, and then came back down to the world and witnesses the madness and insanity there. It is a violent sort of awakening, jarred from placidity to the harsh realities of life among others. It is a daybreak, into darkness. (Note that Phish played at Nietzche's in Buffalo, NY on 4/19/91, leaving their names inscribed on the ceiling, but didn't play 2001 for over two more years, reported by Aaron Westendorf, 10/8/98).


• Strauss's Zarathustra: Richard Strauss (a turn-of-the-century composer who also wrote Til Eulenspiegel Lustige Streiche and Don Quixote) borrowed Nietszche's title for his own (classical) piece, a tone poem nearly twenty minutes long, titled "Also Spracht Zarathustra". (Thanks also to Andrew S. Justice)


• 2001, the movie: Arthur C. Clarke and (director and fellow scriptwriter) Stanley Kubrick used the opening ("Dawn") portion of Strauss's piece as the theme song for their movie 2001: A Space Odyssey in which man leaves his hermitic, one-planet existence and ventures into the insanity and madness of "outer space".
  • More confusion: The movie credits confuse Nietszche's English and Strauss' German, listing the tune as "Thus Sprach Zarathustra. (Aaron b Gail 10/2/98)
  • The book: Although the book version was released later, Clarke had written the book first and was revising it when he and Kubrick wrote the screenplay, which is why the screenplay and the book are different. For example, in the book, they go to saturn, not jupiter. (Thanks to Clayton Kale 12/20/99.) Also, in the movie HAL reported a birthdate of 1/12/97, but Clarke's book says 1/12/92. (Derek L Davies).
  • The HAL9000 computer in the movie was made in Urbana, and Phish has played the song at both Champaign-Urbana shows. (Justin Storch 11/20/97)
  • Violent awakening: Rich Bob (7/10/98) explains further that the Dawn portion in the film comes "as the human ancestor at the beginning (named Moonwatcher in the book, I believe) discovers how to use a large bone from a dead animal as a tool, thus triggering man's rise to dominance.. the scene soon shifts to Moonwatcher's clan of cave people beating the bloody hell out of another group of cave people. This was Kubrick's way of expressing his belief (along the lines of Raymond Dart, Desmond Morris, etc.) that it was mankind's violent and aggressive nature, along with the use of tools that which to his rise to dominance among the animal world."
  
  
• Deodato's Zarathustra: Eumir Deodato (on CTI Records) rearranged the "Dawn" portion of Strauss' tune (effectively, but not uniquely, meaning that he rearranged the theme to 2001) into a jazzy/disco bit used as the theme song to the 1970s film Being There, starring Peter Sellars (best known as the detective in the Pink Panther movies) as an hermitic idiot savant who emerges from his apartment after never witnessing his surroundings, and comes down some stairs to the world and witnesses the madness and insanity there. (Being There is also the title of a book about one field of cognitive science.)
  • Violent awakening: The Dawn portion of his emergeance onto the street begins with some sketchy public housing scenes, early in which the savant is surrounded by young ruffians, including a young Oteil Burbridge, later of ARU, playinthe boy Lolo. Ryan Jones 5/20/98)
  • The movie is based on a book by the same name, by Jerzy Kozinski. (Sarah Hamilton) (Thanks to Todd Amodeo 3/31/99 for the realaudio link.)
  • Deodato's version was titled "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (instead of Spracht). It features not only the familiar variation on Strauss' "Dawn" intro, but a long and intense groove that bring the song's total length to a whopping 11 minutes. It hit #2 on the charts in 1973 and won a Grammy as Best Pop Instrumental Performance. Note, though, that Deodato's concerts were often billed as "2001: The Concert". Also, check out the live version on his Life at the Felt Forum.
  • Deodato's Prelude CD was re-issued in 1997, including the version Phish plays as well as liner notes from Steve Futterman who writes, in part, "His funky "Also Sprach Zarathustra" [sic] lives on. As long as there are oldies stations and compilations of 70's hits sold on TV, it has a home. Deodato's arrangement has also recently found its way into the repertoire of the rock band Phish." (Thanks to Garret Parker, Marcus Pearson, and others.)
  • Bits of Deodato's version can be heard in promotional video for Tag watches, right after the strings, and just after the Albert Einstein quote near the beginning. It may sound like (and has been reported as being) a "cheesy MIDI version of Phish", but it's actually the Deodato version, by Deodato.
  
  
• ELO Also? Electric Light Orchestra reportedly had a track "Theme from 2001" on the album Star Wars and Other Science Fiction Theme Songs, which also included the themes from Close Encounters (of the Third Kind) and Superman. Vincent Masson

Special thanks to Lutz Frommberger, Helge Mruck (10/15/04), Dave Woods (8/20/04), and Zack Dolan (4/21/04).

Anastasio (3/22/94): Well, my advice is to learn lots of little ditties, like TV theme songs. Of all the different practicing things that I've done, I've discovered on any instrument, that one has been for some reason the best in terms of getting music out of your heart and into the air.
Fishman: Start simple.
Rockline: So, the secret of success is ditties?
Anastasio: Ditties. 


 
This page last updated June 01, 2009.
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