Lyric discussion by amanda1020 

Cover art for Mission (A World Record) lyrics by Electric Light Orchestra

I associate this song with Iain M Banks's 'State Of The Art', which is about aliens visiting our planet in the 1970s and decide not to intervene and reveal themselves to us but instead just to watch us as a kind of control group experiment to see what will happen if a species like us isn't contacted. It's not that far-fetched that it was a source of inspiration for this novella as the author does refer to rock quite a lot in his writing, such as 'Clear Air Turbulence' by the Ian Gillan Band.