02. Horsell Common and the Heat Ray lyrics

Instrumental (0:00 - 1:08)

[Narrator: Richard Burton("The Journalist")]

Next morning, a crowd gathered on the Common, hypnotised by the unscrewing of the cylinder. Two feet of shining screw projected when suddenly, the lid fell off. Two luminous disk-like eyes appeared above the rim. A huge rounded bulk, larger than a bear, rose up slowly, glistening like wet leather. Its lipless mouth quivered and slathered, and snakelike tentacles writhed as the clumsy body heaved and pulsated...

Instrumental (1:53 - 3:14)

[Narrator: Richard Burton ("The Journalist")]

A few young men crept closer to the pit. A tall funnel rose and an invisible ray of heat leapt from man to man, and there was a bright glare as each was instantly turned to fire. Every tree and bush became a mass of flames at the touch of this savage, unearthly Heat Ray...

Instrumental (3:33 - 5:26)

[Narrator: Richard Burton ("The Journalist")]

People clawed their way off the Common, and I ran too. I felt I was being toyed with, that when I was on the very verge of safety, this mysterious death would leap after me and strike me down. At last I reached Maybury Hill, and in the dim coolness of my home, I wrote an account for my newspaper before I sank into a restless, haunted sleep...

Instrumental (5:48 - 6:46)

[Narrator: Richard Burton ("The Journalist")]

I awoke to alien sounds of hammering from the pit, and hurried to the railway station to buy the paper. Around me, the daily routine of life; working, eating, sleeping, was continuing serenely as it had for countless years. On Horsell Common, the Martians continued hammering and stirring, indefatigable, at work on the machines they were making. Now and again a light like the beam of a warship's searchlight swept the Common, and the Heat Ray was ready to follow...

Instrumental (7:36 - 9:51)

[Narrator: Richard Burton ("The Journalist")]

In the afternoon, a company of soldiers came through and deployed along the edge of the Common, to form a cordon. That evening, there was a violent crash, and I realised with horror that my home was now in range of the Martian's Heat Ray. At dawn, a falling star with a trail of green mist, landed with a flash like summer lightning. This was the second cylinder...

Instrumental (10:40 - 11:35)

• Artist:Jeff Wayne
• Album:Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds (1978)