William Shatner

I can't claim to be a true Star Trek fan, having only watched the occasional episode and that movie by Leonard Nimoy in which they save the whales. (I may also have read one or two of the associated novels. ahem. ) I can claim to be a fan of the associated music involved. In this post, I will start with the most well known of the musical Trekkers: William Shatner. Or, as I like to call him, "The Shat."

In his long and lustrious (or whatever the opposite of illustrious is) career, Shatner has produced three studio (as opposed to live) albums. The first one, in 1968, was Transformed Man, which George Clooney chose as one of his Desert Island discs, because it would provide him with some motivation to escape. He (Shatner, not Clooney) had a stroke of genius in pairing classical monologues with spoken word versions of popular songs. *cough.*

The Theme From Cyrano/Mr. Tambourine Man - Skip to about 3:40 for his amazing rendition of Mr. Tambourine Man. "Mr Tambourine Maaaaaaan!"


Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

Television version of Hamlet's Soliloquy/It Was A Very Good Year Skip to 5:00 for It Was A Very Good Year. You might die of the smugness though. Or is it teh smugness.


For more un-embedded fun,  here is "Spleen," also from that album: http://youtu.be/Q8-S4sIhnCI

In 1978, Shatner hosted the Science Fiction Film Awards and performed his version of Rocket Man.

Rocket Man


In 2004, Shatner released another album, Has Been. That one had some pretty good songs on it. Good job, Ben Folds! I'm not going to put any songs from that up here but of course I recommend Common People.

I Did It My Way - Yes, starting a tribute song (to George Lucas here) with "And now your end is near," is a lovely thing to do. Skip to 1:19 for the song.


And finally, good news--The Shat is still going. His latest effort is the 2011 album Seeking Major Tom. It looks like an absolute gem.

Bohemian Rhapsody


Iron Man


She Blinded Me With Science


Finally Finally, here he is again, performing "Fuck You." Likewise, Mr. Shatner, likewise. :)