AS TIME GOES BY
By:
September 29, 2025
A series dedicated to poems, published c. 1900–1935, the Radium Age sf-adjacent themes of which include: dystopia and utopia, far-out mathematics and the fourth dimension, Afro-futurism, catastrophe, future war, new technologies, scientific breakthrough, dehumanization, cosmic awe, disenchantment and unseen forces, unknowable aliens and singularity. Research and selection by Joshua Glenn; thematic index here.
This day and age we’re living in
Gives cause for apprehension
With speed and new invention
And things like “fourth dimension”
Yet we get a trifle weary
With Mr. Einstein’s theory
So we must get down to earth at times
Relax, relieve the tension
And no matter what the progress
Or what may yet be proved
The simple facts of life are such
They cannot be removed
— Opening lines to Herman Hupfeld’s “As Time Goes By,” which he wrote for the 1931 Broadway musical Everybody’s Welcome. It was first recorded by Rudy Vallée in 1931 for Victor Records. The song was reintroduced in the 1942 film Casablanca, where it was sung by Sam, portrayed by Dooley Wilson. (Sam does not sing these lines.)
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF POETRY: Stephen Spender’s THE PYLONS | George Sterling’s THE TESTIMONY OF THE SUNS | Archibald MacLeish’s EINSTEIN | Thomas Thornely’s THE ATOM | C.S. Lewis’s DYMER | Stephen Vincent Benét’s METROPOLITAN NIGHTMARE | Robert Frost’s FIRE AND ICE | Aldous Huxley’s FIFTH PHILOSOPHER’S SONG | Sara Teasdale’s “THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS” | Edith Södergran’s ON FOOT I HAD TO… | Robert Graves’s WELSH INCIDENT | Nancy Cunard’s ZEPPELINS | D.H. Lawrence’s WELLSIAN FUTURES | & many more.