The Veldt

Album: Album Title Goes Here (2012)
Charted: 68
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Songfacts®:

  • The song was inspired by a short sci-fi story written by Ray Bradbury, and was created by Deadmau5 during a 22 hour live streaming session. It was posted on Youtube on April 20th 2012.
  • Unknown singer Chris James fell in love with the song as Deadmau5 developed the tune on live stream. He recorded his vocal take of the track and tweeted it to the Canadian electronic artist, who liked it to such an extent that he decided to use Chris's vocals for the final release, which was released on May 7, 2012 on Deadmau5's label, Mau5trap.
  • American writer Ray Bradbury's tale of a family living in a futuristic home with a virtual reality room was published originally as "The World the Children Made" in the September 23, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. It was later republished in the anthology The Illustrated Man as "The Veldt" the following year.
  • Here's some more songs inspired by Ray Bradbury's science fiction and horror stories:
    1) "The Body Electric" by Rush. Based on the Bradbury penned Twilight Zone episode #100 - "I Sing the Body Electric."
    2) "Rocket Man" by Elton John. Bernie Taupin's lyrics were inspired by Bradbury's short story of the same title, which was another tale in his The Illustrated Man anthology.
    3) "Medicine Man" by Barclay James Harvest. Lead guitarist John Lees' lyrics were inspired by the 1962 Bradbury horror novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes.
  • Ray Bradbury died shortly after the song's release, and its animated music video pays tribute to the late author. The clip, which was created by the UK video production house Qudos Animations and directed by Dr. Manroop Takhar depicts the two children from The Veldt in the virtual reality African jungle where the story is set.
  • Deadmau5 explained the inspiration for the tongue-in-cheek album title. "I've been on this track record of not naming album titles with [actual] album titles, so it looked like a print error, and now it doesn't look like a print error, because that's what everyone's calling it," he admitted to MTV News. "It's a good joke that went bad."

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