"Space Truckin'" is a song by British hard rock band Deep Purple. It is the seventh track on the Machine Head album. Its lyrics talk of space travel and it showcases the vocal abilities of singer Ian Gillan and powerful drumming of Ian Paice.

The song's legendary chorus riff, although different, slightly resembles that of the song "Red the Sign Post", released in 1968 by the band Fifty Foot Hose on their album Cauldron.

The intro was featured on the TV show WKRP in Cincinnati on the episode "The Airplane Show" (later issues of the episode replaced this track with generic music).

[edit] Live performances

When it was first performed live, the band appended an instrumental that was originally part of the song "Mandrake Root" on their first album but gradually evolved into a showcase for Jon Lord's Hammond organ and Ritchie Blackmore's guitar solos. This usually took the length of the overall song to over twenty minutes, and was always performed as the last number of the main set. A good example of this arrangement can be found on the Made in Japan album, wherein Blackmore also quotes "Fools" of Fireball "cello" solo.

Jon Lord played his solo through a ring modulator or played some of it on an ARP synthesizer. Meanwhile, Ritchie Blackmore usually split the guitar solo into two halves, a quiet section with just drums, then a loud section with the full band. The second half was often when Ritchie would smash his guitar, play it with his feet or throw it into the air. One of the most infamous incidents where this happened was at the California Jam festival in 1974, where he dropped one guitar over the edge of the stage, smashed a second against a TV camera, then set his amplifier on fire which subsequently exploded.

When Deep Purple reformed in 1984, this extended arrangement was reworked, and later included snippets of other songs.

During the Rapture of the Deep Tour, the final part of the song, which originally featured much high pitched screaming by Gillan (now 63) - featured high pitched guitar in the same key as his original vocals.

[edit] Cover versions

• Dream Theater covered this and the whole Made in Japan album.
• Arjen Anthony Lucassen's Star One covered the song during their 2002 European tour, as seen on the Live on Earth DVD.
• American thrash metal band Overkill included a cover of the song on their 1999 album Coverkill.
• Serbian hard rock band Cactus Jack released a cover on their 2003 Deep Purple Tribute album.
• American industrial metal band Ministry (& the co-Conspirators) include their version of the song in the all-covers album Cover Up.
• Tesla's version is the first track on their album Real to Reel.
• The American band the Swamp Candles, known for being the band that performed the theme song for the Blue World Order faction in ECW, covered the song as well.
• American thrash metal band Vengeance Rising covered the song on their 1990 album Once Dead.