Futuristic Nostalgia

In the year 2525, if man is still alive, If woman can survive, they may find In the year 3535 ain't gonna need To tell the truth, tell no lies.

Everything you think, do and say, Is in the pill you took today . . .

As the song goes on, machines are doing all of man's work for him by 5555. artificial insemination is common place by 6565, and a thousand years later God is thinking maybe it's time for Judgment Day.

This futuristic ballad sounds as though it were composed by a computer at the Rand Corp., but In the Year 2525 is the product of two country-pickin' guitarists from Lincoln, Neb., Denny Zager and Rick Evans, who a year ago were thinking about the future mostly in terms of the source of their next meal. Only last November, Zager, 25, and Evans, 26, were working as a duo, trying their best to please the regular customers in a Lincoln motel lounge. With a borrowed $500 they recorded 2525, which has a simple and schmaltzy tune and a chugging, nostalgic instrumental backup right out of the early 1950s. They released the record on their own label (Truth), gave a copy to some friendly disk jockeys in Lincoln, then watched it take off as a regional hit (11,000 copies sold).

Buoyed by their success, the boys sent copies to all the major record companies in New York and found a quick buyer in RCA. The company quickly put its considerable promotional weight behind 2525 and accomplished a feat that would have made even the Beatles jealous: last week, less than two months after its national release, the single had sold more than a million copies and had zoomed to first place on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. At the same time, RCA issued an LP combining 2525 with nine of Rick's other songs (no protest stuff, just reminiscences about love and other "Now subjects"). Everybody connected with the album was confident that it would do just as well as 2525. Especially Rick. "Nearly every song is profound," he said unflinchingly.

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