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Meet James Ensor

From This Might Be A Wiki
Self-portrait on a Belgian poststamp (From wikipedia)
Self-portrait on a Belgian poststamp (From wikipedia)
song nameMeet James Ensor
artistThey Might Be Giants
albumJohn Henry, Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants, A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants: Melody, Fidelity, Quantity, TMBG Clock Radio
year1994
first playedSep. 7, 1993 (203 known performances)
run time1:33
sung byJohn Flansburgh

[edit] Trivia/Info

In my art history class, while in college, we were bored and all of a sudden [Ensor's] works came up and we were surprised at how exciting it was. He was an expressionist, like other 20th century expressionist painters, who was ahead of his time and was very eccentric. The line "Dig him up and shake his hand" is actually very specific - a parallel idea to a lot of his paintings which involve resurrections, skeletons and puppets being animated. It's not an accident that the language of the song reflects his work. He did a painting - titled something like "Self Portrait in 1970". It's a skeleton, wearing his clothes. He became a phenomenon right before the turn of the century. With the song, I'm trying to encapsulate the issues of his life - an eccentric guy who became celebrated and was soon left behind as his ideas were taken into the culture and other people became expressionists.

[edit] Song Themes

Death, Drinking Glasses, Educational, Forgetting, Remembering, Friendship, Loneliness, People (Real), Relatives, Religion, Windows

[edit] Videos

 
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Meet James Ensor is currently ranked #100 out of 799. (190 wikians have given it an average rating of 8.93)
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