Recording The song was recorded primarily in one take in 1968, at a studio in a cow pasture in Odessa, Texas. Personnel Denny Zager & Rick Evansacoustic guitars & vocals Mark Daltonbass guitar Dave Truppdrums The Odessa Symphonyadditional instruments Tommy Allsupproducer The record had regional success so RCA Records picked it up for a national release. RCA producer Ethel Gabriel was tasked with enhancing the sound and arrangement. The track went to number 1 on the U.S. charts within three weeks of release. Legacy The song has been covered at least 60 times in seven languages, including a Jewish parody recorded by Country Yossi, and an Italian version recorded by Zager and Evans called "Nell'Anno 2033". It was included in a Clear Channel memorandum, distributed by Clear Channel Communications to every radio station owned by the company, which contained 165 songs considered to be "lyrically questionable" following the September 11, 2001, attacks. Two lines of the song are sung by the inmate Murphy in the 1992 FILM Alien 3 immediately prior to his death. Brief snippets are played in "The Time Is Now", the second-season finale of the TV show Millennium, which depicts an apocalyptic event. The song was rewritten and used as the introductory theme for the 2000 TV series Cleopatra 2525. In 2010, it was parodied as "In the Year 252525" in the seventh episode of Futurama'''s sixth season, "The Late Philip J. Fry", as Fry, Professor Farnsworth and Bender travel forwards through time to find a period in which the backwards time machine has been invented. The song acts as an aesthetic theme to the film Gentlemen Broncos. The BBC Radio series 2525, a sketch show set in the year 2525, featured a cover of the song with its first lyric as its introductory theme. The first few verses of the song are used as the opening theme while the credits roll in the 2006 film Tunnel Rats''. Chart history Weekly charts Year-end charts All-time charts See also 26th century Brave New World Dystopia Human extinction Human impact on the environment Anthropocene List of one-hit wonders in the United Kingdom List of one-hit wonders in the United States References External links 1964 songs 1968 debut singles 1969 singles American folk rock songs American psychedelic rock songs Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles Cashbox number-one singles UK Singles Chart number-one singles Number-one singles in Germany Number-one singles in Switzerland