1972 Road-Trip Anthem, Written by Rock Legends, Was Inspired by an Iconic TV Theme
In 1972, Deep Purple released a hard rock track with a spacey, sci-fi theme. The song, "Space Truckin'," featured distorted guitar and organ riffs and high-pitched screams from lead singer Ian Gillan as it told the nonsensical tale of a wild ride in outer space. The closing track from Deep Purple's most commercially successful studio album, the iconic Machine Head, "Space Truckin'" became a road-trip anthem that continues to take fans on a cosmic journey 54 years later.
"Space Truckin'" was written by bandmates Gillan, Ritchie Blackmore, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice, but it was Blackmore who came up with the song's signature cosmic riff. The guitar legend was playing around with a musical exercise modeled after a 1960s TV theme song composed by Neal Hefti and performed by session musicians, the Wrecking Crew.
"In those days, there was a show called Batman, and I thought that the theme song was so symmetrical," Blackmore once told Classic Albums of the TV opener, per Far Out magazine. "[The riff] originally began as a finger exercise that I was using to play with my thumb."
Blackmore originally thought the riff to "Space Truckin'" was too simple.
"It was almost like a thumb exercise," Blackmore recalled, per Rock and Roll Garage. "It could be played with a thumb, and I took to Ian Gillan. I said, ‘Ian, I had this idea, but it is so ridiculous. It's so silly and simple that I don't think we can use it'."
Gillan listened to the riff and told him, "No, I think we can use it."
Gillan added the vocals to Blackmore's music, and his screams of "yeah, yeah, yeah, Space Truckin'" are reminiscent of the "Batman" phrase that's sung 11 times in the theme song for the classic Adam West, Burt Ward superhero series.
Not only is it the ultimate hard rock jam through the Milky Way, but "Space Truckin'" ranks as one of Gillan's greatest vocal performances.
Goldmine magazine described the song as "rifftastic" and added, "The tune features powerful lead vocals – and plenty of melodic screaming – from Ian Gillan." The outlet also noted that a nearly 20-minute version of the track was included on Deep Purple's 1973 live album, Made in Japan.
But if you're trying to make sense of the lyrics, don't waste your time. Gillan once told Songfacts that the references to "the Pony Trekker" and other oddities mean nothing.
"It's not literal – nothing in that song is literal," the Deep Purple legend said. "It's all a play on words, like, 'We'd move to the ‘Canaveral moonstop,' and ‘Pony Trekker,' and 'Borealice.' It's all nonsense."
Related: ‘70s Hard Rockers Never Expected Their 1976 Top 10 Hit to Take Off
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This story was originally published May 26, 2026 at 5:47 AM.