Veteran of the Psychic Wars
Veteran of the Psychic Wars is a song by Blue Öyster Cult. It was written by guitarist Eric Bloom and British author Michael Moorcock. The song appears on the 1981 album Fire of Unknown Origin and runs about 4 minutes and 49 seconds. An extended live version is on Extraterrestrial Live (1982), and the track is also on the Heavy Metal movie soundtrack. The music blends elements of progressive rock, psychedelic rock, and occult themes, and it was produced by Martin Birch for Columbia Records.
The famous line “veteran of a thousand psychic wars” comes from Hawkwind’s Standing at the Edge (1975), a work connected to Moorcock’s Eternal Champion myth. The idea of a “psychic war” also appears in Jim Morrison’s poem Far Arden.
The song has been covered and performed by various artists and groups, including King Django meets the Scrucialists (2003), Arjen Anthony Lucassen (2012), and Ape Machine (2022). Finnish band Tarot played it live in 2004 and included it as a bonus track on their 2006 album Fleesh. Metallica played the song at the Bridge School Benefit in 2007 and in later concerts.
A.V. Club writer Jason Heller described the song as a “pseudo-mystical post-Vietnam parable,” noting that the drums feel tribal, the synthesizers hum like incantations, and the guitar is minimal and ritualistic.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 11:04 (CET).