This all time classic futuristic song of the one-hit artists Zager & Evans reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks, in 1969. The song was written by Rick Evans in 1964 and originally released on a small local record label in 1967. Two years later, an Odessa, Texas radio station popularized the disc, which RCA Records quickly picked up for nationwide distribution.

The overriding theme, of a world doomed by its passive acquiescence to and overdependence on its own overdone technologies, struck a resonant chord in millions of people around the world in the 1960s.

The song is based on a nightmarish vision of the future as man's technological inventions gradually dehumanize him. It references examples of technologies that were not fully developed but were known to the public in 1969, such as robots, as well as future technology that would come into existence long after being prophesied in the song, the science of test tube babies and genetic selection by parents of their future children. Such a concept had been explored in a few science fiction novels but had not yet been mentioned in the mainstream media until "In the Year 2525" was released in 1969.

It is not common for a recording artist to have a number one hit single and then never have another chart single for the rest of their career. "In the Year 2525" gave Zager and Evans this dubious status twice. They were, and remain, the only act to do this in both the U.S. and UK singles charts. Their follow up single on RCA-Victor, "Mr. Turnkey" (a song about a rapist who nails his own wrist to the wall as punishment for his crime), failed to chart.

This song has been covered many times after its first release and is still famous and popular about its prophetical visions which came true or threaten to come true too much earlier than the songwriters had foreseen.

The basic concept that runs through the lyrics is strongly from religious point of view, about the human arrogance and