O Tannenbaum
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | O Tannenbaum |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | O Tannenbaum (Single), TMBG Unlimited - October, They Might Be Giants In Holidayland, TMBG Clock Radio |
| year | 1993 |
| first played | December 18, 1997 (1 known performance) |
| run time | 2:05 |
| sung by | John Linnell |
Trivia/Info
- "O Tannenbaum" is a traditional German Christmas carol, known in English as "O Christmas Tree".
- This song was recorded at a soundcheck at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, California on November 20, 1992 during the Don't Tread on the Cut-Up Snake Tour. (The single erroneously lists the venue as Hollywood High, but the back cover of They Might Be Giants In Holidayland correctly lists Fairfax High.)
- This song features Jonathan Feinberg on drums.
- John Flansburgh on the song's vibe and the experimental nature of its recording:[1]
There’s an otherness to the actual spirit of that song that you’re really reminded of when you hear it in German. It’s as much for the kind of — this is an extremely pretentious way of putting it — the V-effect when you hear a song in a foreign language. It just makes you listen to it in a different way. It’s not the same as hearing Barbara Mandrell singing “O Tannenbaum.” You could mistake “O Tannenbaum” for an un-mysterious piece of music. Also, the original version is truncated, it doesn’t have the repeats that the Americanized version does. Which accelerates the melody of it. It’s a very cool piece of music. And we were really trying to underscore the mystery of it.
We actually recorded that song at a sound check. We were playing at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, and we got somebody’s mother or boyfriend, somebody we knew spoke German, and did the phonetic translation. We had the sheet music, and they helped us. I’m sure if a German-speaker heard it, it’s probably a really brutalized version of German. It was really just an experiment. It’s a five-piece band playing it, but we actually managed to pull out an arrangement that sounds like more people playing, which is the coolest thing about it. I think Linnell might have switched off instruments halfway through the song.
Song Themes
Colors, German, Holidays, Language, Not In Common Time, Plants, TMBG Remakes
Videos
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