The Time Machine is the third solo album by English rock musician Alan Parsons. While the sound of this album is similar to some of the soft, ethereal tracks by the Alan Parsons Project, none of the writing or performance credits in the sleeve notes go to Alan Parsons, except for one short and simple instrumental part on "Temporalia" (the other instrumentals were written by drummer Stuart Elliott and guitarist Ian Bairnson), the Japanese bonus track "Beginnings" which also features his voice, and organ on "No Future in the Past"; his relation to the album is almost exclusively as producer. The album lacks much of the rock edge of the previous albums up to and including On Air. Concept The themes of time, time travel, and memory of the past had been suggested by Parsons as subject matter for the second Alan Parsons Project album, but writing partner Eric Woolfson favoured a purely futuristic theme of robotic beings eventually displacing the human race, which eventually resulted in the album I Robot. "Temporalia" features a narration by professor Frank Close on the idea of the universe itself acting as a sort of time machine; this is an extract of "Equinox – The rubber Universe". "Press Rewind" ponders what a person might do if they were able to reverse time, and change decisions they had made. "Out Of The Blue" relates to a time traveller from the future. "Call Up" is about great people from history and, according to Ian Bairnson, "the effect they would have on the World right now, if they were here". "Ignorance Is Bliss" talks about how sad people are in comparison to ancient and simpler times, and the possibility of change for good to a simple way of life. "Rubber Universe" is related to the expansion of the universe. "The Call of the Wild" talks about a future when mankind will be one without any separation (ethnicities, faith, nations, etc.). The melody of this song is a variation of the traditional Irish folk song "She Moves Through the Fair". "No Future in the Past" talks about avoiding repeating past mistakes. "The Very Last Time" is a song about people that have gone and never been seen again. The song was written about Bairnson's recently deceased dog, Gemma. "Far Ago and Long Away" is a play on words, as in relativity space = time, so "far away" =