These Musicians Predicted the Future...

Top 10 Times Musicians Predicted the Future

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Times Musicians Predicted the Future.

For this list, we’ll be looking at the most eerily accurate speculations and coincidences made by musically inclined artists.

Which of these predictions struck you the most? Play along in the comments.

#10: Plane Disaster

Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd was one of the biggest bands of the ‘70s for immortalizing southern rock. Sadly, their signature lineup ended in tragedy just three days after the release of their fifth album. A plane crash in Mississippi killed seven people, including three band members. This tragic incident led the band to get rid of art from their new “Street Survivor” album. Why? Because their original cover art featured the band engulfed in flames. The eerie coincidences don’t end there. One of the album’s biggest tracks, “That Smell”, deals with impending death. Moreover, survivors later recounted singer Ronnie Van Zant’s was certain that he would not live past 29. He sadly died on that fateful flight.

#9: Nightclub Fire

Teodoro & Sampaio
The Brazilian country duo Teodoro & Sampaio has enjoyed a loyal following for their often humorously vivid lyrics. But the 2008 song "Pegou Fogo Na Zona" was dark enough when it seemed strictly rhetorical. The ballad describes a fire at a nightclub that kills many people, including the band's accordionist. Five years later, the group Gurizada Fandangueira was performing at a nightclub in Santa Maria when a fire broke out. Among the hundreds killed was the band's accordionist Danilo Jaques. Country fans soon connected this tragedy with the lyrics of Teodoro & Sampaio’s prophetic "Pegou Fogo Na Zona".

#8: President Donald Trump

Rage Against the Machine
Nothing in American politics and capitalism has been far-fetched to Rage Against the Machine. Of course, the music video for "Sleep Now in the Fire" was more prophetic than anyone in 1999 realized. In a dystopian 2000, a Wall Street extra can be seen carrying a sign for Donald Trump's presidential campaign. A year after the video's release, the prominent billionaire actually ran for president for the first time. He would later win the election 16 years later. Bassist Tim Commerford also claims the sign was mainly director Michael Moore’s idea. Additionally, the documentarian reminded the band in 2016 that Trump’s presidency was possible before he won.

#7: Cousin's Death

Nicki Minaj
Throughout her life, rapper Nicki Minaj has experienced great hardships. One of her most public tragedies revolved around the murder of her cousin Nicholas Telemaqu in July 2011. Two days after his death, Minaj’s song “We Miss You” was leaked online. Its lyrics described the shooting death of a loved one in July. Minaj soon revealed that she wrote the song a whole year prior. Although “We Miss You” is a fictional elegy for a lover, it closely parallels Telemaque’s shooting death. Minaj later addressed the real tragedy in the emotional tracks “Champion” and “All Things Go”. The lyrics of “We Miss You” still remain as shockingly accurate words of a foreboding event.

#6: Online Dating

Zapp
The electro-funk band Zapp always had a flair for futurism. But with the 1980s bringing many novel forms of dating, computer-based courtship may have seemed like a natural progression. The 1986 jam "Computer Love" envisioned a seductive love story on a digital platform. After years of techies tinkering with this idea, Match.com launched in 1995. Since then, countless platforms have turned once-stigmatized online dating into a popular route to romance. Charlie Wilson acknowledged how ambitious and bizarre "Computer Love" was at the time. In fact, the record label almost didn't release it. While that might not have made a difference in the online dating industry, Zapp gave it their credible romantic approval before anyone else.

#5: Barack Obama Finds Osama bin Laden

The Game
The Game is such a devout fan of Barack Obama that he got a tattoo of the President in 2013. Shortly after Obama announced his candidacy in 2007, the rapper gave his first striking endorsement with the Lil Wayne collaboration "Hard Times". The lyric opened by hyping Obama as being capable of catching Osama. In 2011, a pivotal event brought attention to that lyric once more. That year, Obama oversaw the operation that led to the death of Osama bin Laden. It’s still surprising that “Hard Times” predicted both a presidency and the end of an Al-Qaeda leader.

#4: Shooting

John Lennon
In 1984, the public finally heard "Borrowed Time", a plucky ballad about the inevitability of death. It was one of the last songs John Lennon recorded before he was assassinated by Mark David Chapman in 1980. But it wasn't the only time Lennon publicly speculated that this would be how he died. Back in 1965, he told a reporter that The Beatles might end with a plane crash or being "popped off by some loony". Fans have also pointed to the song title "Happiness Is a Warm Gun”. Additionally, listeners noted that Lennon whispered “shoot me” during "Come Together". Ultimately, there were multiple points where the artist seemed to foreshadow his own end.

#3: His Death & Climate Change

Jimi Hendrix
Two foreboding songs stand out from Jimi Hendrix’s eerily edgy songwriting. “The Ballad of Jimi” closed with a chant that he would be dead in five years. Hendrix always suspected that he would not live to 30, and told a journalist, “I’m almost gone”, two days before his passing at 27. But what’s most shocking is that he did indeed die five years after “The Ballad of Jimi” was completed. In between, Hendrix made another alarming observation in “Up From the Skies”. The 1967 lyric refers to a burnt world as “a change of climate.” The then-relatively unknown science and name of climate change would not be popularized until the 1980s.

#2: 9/11

Wilco
With a loyal fanbase by the early 2000s, Wilco’s mainstream breakout with their fourth album came under unfortunate circumstances. After a record label fallout, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” dropped on the band’s website one week after its planned release date of September 11, 2001. Listeners were shocked by its coincidental parallels with the tragic events of that day. Lyrics referred to nationalism, war, and collapsing skyscrapers. The album cover also featured Chicago’s twin Marina Towers. Even the title is lifted from the NATO phonetic alphabet for air traffic control. Despite the shocking predictions within the record, the album won widespread acclaim and brought Wilco wider attention.

#1: Big Tech

Radiohead
From generic pop music to climate denialism, Radiohead have made some astute observations ahead of their time. The legendary album "OK Computer" made particularly unique predictions about consumer technology that turned out to not be that radical. "Fitter Happier" envisioned a watch that could monitor your health and provide endless entertainment to think for you. Today, smart devices like the Apple Watch are everywhere in modern society. Moreover, the B-side track "Palo Alto" anticipated Silicon Valley's tech boom about three years before Google moved in. These are just the hardest premonitions in an album full of abstract warnings about social regression with technical progress. Given their track record so far, Radiohead's cautionary lyrics may not sound so strange in the future.