Sapphire Bullets Of Pure Love
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Flood, Don't Let's Start (EP) [Elektra 7" Re-issue], Flood + Apollo 18 |
| year | 1990 |
| first played | February 22, 1989 (61 known performances) |
| run time | 1:36 |
| sung by | John Flansburgh; John Linnell sings very prominent harmony |
Trivia/Info
- The title of this song comes from the 24-second instrumental track "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love" by Mahavishnu Orchestra, from their 1973 album Birds of Fire. John Linnell said of the inspiration: "I thought it would be good to expand on the [identical] title of [the instrumental]. 'Bullets of love' is a funnily dissonant idea. That was a few years before the Sex Pistols arrived."[1] TMBG's song could be referencing Mahavishnu Orchestra bandleader John McLaughlin with the lyric "John, I've been bad," though it may also be self-referential.
- First appearing on the 1985 "TMB Songs" list as "Sapphire Bullets", John Flansburgh said of the song: "[That] was a track we reworked for Flood. We used to do [the] song as a duo, and that version had a nice simplicity to it."[2] He would elaborate on Tumblr:
Somewhere from '85 to '89 we started playing it, if memory serves. Because it wasn’t a "rockin'" track and we had a lot of curious ones to ponder, it eluded an album placement until Flood (along with "They Might Be Giants" which also was kicking around for a bit).
- For the band's 30th Anniversary Flood tour in 2020, TMBG debuted a new version of this song titled "stelluB", which is the entire original song sung and played backwards. A studio recording would later be released in 2024 as a single, with Flansburgh detailing the choice to learn it backwards in a TMBG newsletter advertising the single:
The song's percussive nature seemed better suited as short notes often reproduce clearly when played backward, and the song was short enough that we wouldn't find ourselves hypnotized by the end.
- In live performances and the Dial-A-Song demo of "Sapphire Bullets Of Pure Love", as well as the studio recording of "stelluB", John and John sing lyrics in unison at the end of the song which are not present in the Flood recording:
Lyrics sung by John Linnell: |
Lyrics sung by John Flansburgh: |
- TMBG's fake TMBG cover band, Sapphire Bullets, take their name from this song.
Song Themes
Different When Played Live, Fading, Love, Precious Metal, References To Other Songs Or Musicians, Self-Reference, Title Not In Lyrics, Weapons
Videos
Current Rating You must be logged in to rate this. You can either login (if you have a userid) or create an account with us today. Sapphire Bullets Of Pure Love is currently ranked #309 out of 1059. (176 wikians have given it an average rating of 8.56) |
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