‘It has never been more pertinent’ – Margaret Atwood on the chilling genius of Laurie Anderson’s Big Science

The seminal album, with its extraordinary hit single O Superman, was unlike anything the writer had ever heard. As Bad Science returns, Atwood pays tribute to its prophetic dissection of 80s America

Here come the planes. They're American planes! Musicologists and the less young will recognise those lines, which are from Laurie Anderson's 1981 unlikely voice-synthesiser hit O Superman. This song, if it is one - try humming it in the shower - led to Anderson's first multi-song album, 1982's Big Science.

Big Science is being reissued at a very timely moment: America is reinventing itself again. It's a self-rescue mission, and just in time: democracy, we have been led to believe, has been snatched from the jaws of autocracy, maybe. A New Deal, leading to a fairer distribution of wealth and an ultimately liveable planet, is on the way, possibly. Racism dating back centuries is being addressed, hopefully. Let's hope these helicopters don't crash.