Tippecanoe And Tyler Too

From This Might Be A Wiki

song name Tippecanoe and Tyler Too
artist They Might Be Giants
releases Future Soundtrack For America, Venue Songs, Podcast 1A, Podcast 36A
year 2004
first played December 6, 2017 (55 known performances)
run time 1:38
sung by John Flansburgh


Trivia/Info

  • A song that uses actual campaign song lyrics from the Tippecanoe and Tyler Too campaign for William Henry Harrison and John Tyler in the U.S. Presidential election of 1840.
  • In an interview with Billboard in 2004, John Flansburgh explained, "It was the campaign song that invented the campaign song...I was interested in it because it's a great song, but historically, [through] the little bit of research I've done, I got the impression that it was the 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' of campaign songs."[1]
  • Flansburgh further stated:[2]
I always knew the expression but not the song until I was played a bunch of campaign songs by the historian for WNYC while working on a radio show proposal there. It was the most important one of the bunch (kind of the original election song, and extremely popular with general public). In terms of the arrangement, "minor-izing" any popular song immediately shifts the vibe, in in this case made it seem especially haunted. I put together a pretty complete demo from home made samples, and then John L. played his spider-webby zither samples over it, and Danny created the bass part that gets especially cool in the instrumental section in the middle.
  • "Little Van" refers to Martin Van Buren, Harrison's opponent and sitting president who lost his bid for re-election.

Song Themes

Drinking, History, People (Real), Presidents, Questions, Real Estate, TMBG Remakes, Water

Videos

Current Rating

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Tippecanoe And Tyler Too is currently ranked #213 out of 1005. (51 wikians have given it an average rating of 8.73)