September 2024
Derek Smalls: “Can I raise a practical question at this point? Are we going to do Stonehenge tomorrow?”
David St Hubbins: “No, we’re not gonna fucking do Stonehenge!”
Stonehenge may be a song by the great British Heavy Metal band Spinal Tap, but it’s also prehistoric megalithic structure, found on the the Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire, England.
Erected in stages over the span of around 1500 years as a circle of large sarsen stones, each standing around thirteen feet high, seven feet wide, and weighing around twenty-five tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones and free-standing trilithons.
The monument itself is aligned towards the sunrise for both the summer and winter solstice.
Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from its earliest beginnings
Previously thought to be a Druid temple, Stonehenge researchers have hypothesized that it was built as a burial monument, a meeting place between chiefdoms, or even an astronomical “computer.”
The story of Stonehenge, as told by Spinal Tap:
“In ancient times…
Hundreds of years before the dawn of history
Lived a strange race of people… the Druids
No one knows who they were or what they were doing
But their legacy remains
Hewn into the living rock… Of Stonehenge
Stonehenge! Where the demons dwell
Where the banshees live and they do live well
Stonehenge! Where a man’s a man
And the children dance to the Pipes of Pan
Hey!
Stonehenge! ‘Tis a magic place
Where the moon doth rise with a dragon’s face
Stonehenge! Where the virgins lie
And the prayers of devils fill the midnight sky
And you my love, won’t you take my hand?
We’ll go back in time to that mystic land
Where the dew drops cry and the cats meow
I will take you there, I will show you how
Oh!”
Words and music by David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel and Derek Smalls.
Sources: Stonehenge – Wikipedia, This Is Spinal Tap – Wikipedia, Stonehenge | History, Location, Map, Meaning, & Facts | Britannica.
