Twilight Zone by Golden Earring

Album: Cut (1982)

Charted: 10

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Songfacts®:

Right out front, note that this song has nothing to do with Manhattan Transfer's "Twilight Zone." One is not a cover of the other. This is the "Twilight Zone" written by Golden Earring's lead guitarist George Kooymans. He was inspired not by the famous TV series of the same name, but by the Robert Ludlum novel The Bourne Identity, which would later be turned into a popular movie.

The song and especially the video tell the story of an espionage agent on the run from enemy spies before being cornered. The cover of the album Cut (from which this was the only single) shows a scene repeated in the video of a bullet slicing through the Jack of Diamonds playing card. The card represents the rogue agent.
Interestingly, there was at least one episode of the original Twilight Zone TV series which was also a spy drama. Namely, episode #149 from season 5, "The Jeopardy Room," is about a Soviet KGB agent who wants to defect, but he ends up pinned in a hotel room under surveillance from a hit man and his accomplice, who sadistically make him play a game for his life. And it's one of the few episodes where a gun is fired - "When the bullet hits the bone," indeed!
Get ready for a nostalgia blast: This song was also used as the theme to the Twilight Zone pinball machine. This was part of Bally Midway's series of "Superpin" arcade pinball games that were based on TV shows - other pinball games in the series were based on Star Trek and The Addams Family.
Fittingly, this song was sometimes used as bumper music for the radio show Coast to Coast AM, the all-night paranormal talk show which more frequently used "A Hazy Shade of Winter."
The video is yet another whose early airplay on MTV paid off. In MTV Ruled the World - The Early Years of Music Video, Rick Springfield talks about the MTV Effect: "The difference that I saw was, before MTV, you'd have to be on like your third successful album before people started recognizing you at the airport. But once MTV hit, you had that one hit single, and you were as recognizable as if you were around for three or four years. It was so instant. That was the power of television.
Golden Earring is a Dutch band that started in 1961 and had essentially the same lineup until 2019, when they played their last show. They were really popular in their homeland, but the rest of the world knows them almost exclusively for their 1973 hit "Radar Love." "Twilight Zone," released nine years later, was their only other hit in America, thanks largely to MTV.

Comments: 20

John from Cleveland, OhioJosh A. in Phonix that is incorrect. Reverse the audio and you can hear it was clearly spoken and then reversed. And the cool organ swell is not an effect but a more common synth sound that is reversed. This is obvious in the reversal.

I posted the audio reversed here. Sorry but it has to be cranked as the filtering process dropped the volume.

https://youtu.be/qY894QaHl4o
I'm Waldo from New YorkMy listening pleasure is imagining this is a duet between David Byrne and Mick Jagger.
Josh A. from Phoenix, ArizonaThe first couple seconds of the song actually says, "On the inside looking out". You can hear it very very faintly. It's not backward masked. Would be strange for them to put in a song. But this song I agree is probably the greatest song ever written.
Peter Huston from MaineIf there is a hidden meaning in these lyrics it fits a drug delivery scenario exactly. 'Bullet hits the bone" actually is drugspeak for "needle in the arm" and "hit man" is the delivery man.
Lmj from SydneyIt’s “place is a madhouse, feels like being CLONED” In the video toward the end, he literally looks out at an audience of his clones as he sings the line
John R from IllinoisTwilight Zone explained - There are three parties: The Messenger, the Target, and the Hitman. The Messenger is sent to collect something from the Target but is not supposed to kill him. He is sent to get the info, as the Target is likely to be killed soon anyway, and the Messenger's team needs the info before that happens. Things head south, and the Messenger ends up killing the Target, thus going too far. He is then double crossed by his team who sent him due to stepping over the line or due to him not getting the info they need, and they provide no extraction. The Hitman ultimately shows up to kill the Target, but the Target is already dead. We never know what becomes of the Messenger, and whether he escapes over the borderline or the bordeline was something he crossed by killing the Target.
Mel from The DinerSome of the lyrics weren't clear to me, so it's nice to actually see them. Never knew how this song was connected with The Twilight Zone, however now it's clear that it's not.
Mike Nickles from Dark Circle IlThanks John from Cleveland I thought I was the only person that noticed it at the beginning no one mentions it online with Dj sound and headphones more things like that will be caught
Kja from HereThis song is about wanting drugs and not being able to get them. Waiting and waiting and going crazy in the interim. That was 80s rock. Everything was about sex or drugs.
Bj Parks from UsaThe song is about a drug deal gone wrong in Istanbul Turkey. " My becon been moved under moon and star " Turkey has a moon and star on its flag
Ben F. from California Yeah, pretty sure it’s “feels like being CLONED”. If you watch the video, there’s a scene where there are multiples of the singer in the audience.
Steve K from Virginia BeachThese lyrics are wrong and are being propagated all over the internet. Do your homework Lyrics find! "Feels like being cloned" final answer
Ronald from Florida I read somewhere that the lyrics are "Help, I'm steppin into the twilight zone. this is a mad house feels like being cloned. I used to think that he said " feels like being blown" like having his cover blown, but, that was before I learned after puberty that could have a different meaning than what I was thinking of as a youth.
Poop4brains from InterzoneI too love the heck out of this song. Check out the baby in the audience turning his head to look at the camera. That is beyond super-creepy.
And I'd say "Yes there's a Nazi theme in a Gravity's Rainbow kind of way" but on the whole it seems to me like a Cold War vibe. To me anyway. Reminds me of the movie The Third Man.
John from Cleveland, OhioThe beginning of the song is backwards masked. The vocal part exists in the left channel and not the right channel. The vocal is also highly compressed so it is difficult to make out. I think it says, "Sirens in your head, your whole life spins into".
John from Cleveland, OhioAt the end of the intro speech, what does he say? He says a word after 2 AM. (Being obsessive-compulsive it drives me InSAne when lyric sheets do not include content/imrovisations/etc.!) I at first thought he said, "It's 2 AM man." Then I cranked it up and thought I heard a "b", like he was saying "2 AM band". My final and best guess is that he says "2 AM and..." and the singer takes over to continue the story.
Anecdotally rockers I encounter inevitably love "Radar Love" more. From my perspective "Radar Love" sounds like a guy in his bedroom just fooling around on guitar, he comes up with this rap and then just plays it excessively to make it into a song. "Twilight Zone" is just crazy good in every respect, SCARY when I as a youngster heard it, great singing, great guitar, creative poetry describing the situation (right on Lester from NYC!)...I think this is one of the best rock songs every created and it should have a lot more attention.
Dm from ArizonaFilm Noir in a music video! Credited as the first music video with a story.
The rogue agent is SO screwed and his captures know it. That sick torture factory gives obvious hints they're Nazis. They got what they wanted.
So they drug him, maybe brainwash him, beat him within an inch of his life and they'll probably use him as a double agent later. The entire time he (and us) are thinkin' yer gonna die, dude and by the end he doesn't care. So they take him right up to the moment... and drive away.
________________________________
In this published article, I'm IN a Film Noir movie to explain what it is.
https://hubpages.com/entertainment/What-Are-All-The-Elements-of-Film-Noir
by Dan W. Miller aka "The Vanilla Godzilla"
William from Reno, NvTwice a year (for 24 years) this was my favorite song!

I was in the US Navy and used this song when I ran my biannual PRT. The beat was just the perfectly timed for a long run. Now every time I hear it I remember how much it took my mind off of those terrible moments.

Thanks GR!!!!
K/H D
Lester from Nyc"When the Bullet Hits the Bone"

One of my favorites, and an all-time classic rock song.
Cher from Tampa, FlThis song is just sick. Even my 15 year old thinks it's amazing. Love the Trivia about the Bourne Novels. My favorite series of spy novels. Pretty cool.

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