The Co-Pilot

Album: There Is No Space for Us (2025)
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Songfacts®:

  • By the time a band gets to its 37th album, you might reasonably assume they've said everything they possibly could about alien invasions, parallel dimensions and the inner workings of time-traveling starships. But Hawkwind, the indefatigable godfathers of space rock, are clearly just getting warmed up.

    There Is No Space for Us, released on April 18, 2025, builds on the brooding themes of The Future Never Waits (2023) and Stories from Time and Space (2024), and hurtles even deeper into dystopian, metaphysical territory. Frontman and founding space-druid Dave Brock explained to Uncut magazine that the album explores the idea of "preparing for an Earth without humans," which is not the most comforting concept, but then again, neither was their 1977 album Quark, Strangeness and Charm.

    "It's also about how giant gas planets could be living entities eating other planets, entering the world of black holes and dwarf stars," Brock added. "This could be happening on a giant scale that we humans have no concept of."

    It's Hawkwind, so you nod and go with it.
  • Amid all this swirling interplanetary annihilation and existential panic comes an unexpected - and oddly tender - track: "The Co-Pilot," an eight-minute acoustic-led shape-shifter released as the album's lead single that floats along on a cosmic breeze tinged with bossa nova and celestial melancholy. It sounds less like a space battle and more like watching stars with someone you love.

    And that's exactly what it is. Beneath the shimmer and interstellar drift lies a simple, heartfelt love song. Dave Brock wrote it for his wife Kriss, who also manages the band and, as he told Uncut, is "effectively my co-pilot."

    In a rare departure from the cosmic narrative, Brock explained that while much of There Is No Space for Us deals with existential doom on a galactic scale, "The Co-Pilot" is grounded in real life. It's a tribute to shared journeys, mutual support, and the kind of deep-rooted companionship that no amount of space debris can shake loose.

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