Celebration

From This Might Be A Wiki

song name Celebration
artist They Might Be Giants
releases Join Us, Podcast 55
year 2011
first played September 8, 2011 (83 known performances)
run time 3:48
sung by John Flansburgh


Trivia/Info

  • John Flansburgh on the song via Twitter: "It's a pretty impressionistic song. It wasn't written in a rehearsal hall, but it's kind of ABOUT writing in a rehearsal hall."
  • This song's introduction was adapted from the video Bong Hit Station from artist Tom Sachs' Nutsy's series, which includes instructions such as "To play a record, select an album and place it on the turntable," and "...the racer must attach five dollars to her car and drive to the booth. Signal by ringing the bell."
  • Read about the pop culture references in this song (from Wikipedia): Banksy, Anonymous, and Hieronymus Bosch.
  • While recording the song, Marty Beller "slipped in" a drum fill at 3:30 in tribute to Phil Collins, who had announced retirement in 2011, before returning to music in 2015. A video of the drum fill was uploaded to YouTube on March 14, 2011.
  • Flansburgh says the bridge for this song is based on the Rolling Stones song ""Emotional Rescue".
  • The lyric "You hear the cataclysmic discharge of the optimist" may refer to the saxophone playing of Stan "The Optimist" Harrison, who is featured elsewhere on Join Us.
  • Used in the episode "Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time" of the TV series Switched at Birth.

Song Themes

Bells, Criminal Activities, Money, Music, Parties, People (Real), Real Estate, Spoken Word, Sports, Trade Names, Transportation

Videos

Current Rating

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Celebration is currently ranked #663 out of 1010. (93 wikians have given it an average rating of 7.86)