Tesla
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | Tesla |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Nanobots, Idlewild |
| year | 2013 |
| first played | March 3, 2013 (83 known performances) |
| run time | 2:04 |
| sung by | John Flansburgh, John Linnell backs |
Trivia/Info
- Nikola Tesla was a prolific engineer known for his wealth of contributions to the scientific community, in particular his work with alternating currents and X-rays, as well as his curious eccentricism. This song accurately enumerates some of the advancements in technology made possible by Tesla's work, in addition to some of his own patented inventions. Other lyrics from the song also accurately describe Tesla's life, including his obsessive-compulsive tendencies, his proposed teleforce device ("death-ray"), and his death at the New Yorker Hotel.
- Though this song received its first album release in 2013 on Nanobots, it was in the works as early as 2008 according to Flansburgh in a Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child interview. Flansburgh would later mention in 2013 that the song was originally intended for Here Comes Science, but was left off due to the song's subject matter[1]:
As we learned more about him and discovering things like him losing his mind towards the end of his life, we decided that the subject matter had too troubling of a vibe for a kids' record.
- A "rock" version of the song with different chords and lyrics was also mentioned by Flansburgh to have been recorded for Join Us,[2] but remained incomplete without a finished vocal.[3] It was officially released to members of the 2020 Instant Fan Club under the name "Tesla Demo" on Secret Music Vol. 2.
- An official video for the song was created by the Office of Paul Sahre and released on May 27, 2014, in promotion of the Idlewild compilation. It features the original album version plus seven different remixes and two other compositions (Happier, Crazier and Studio Cat). The final remix featured in the video samples an alternate mix of the Join Us demo, six years before its official release.
- Mr. Sahre said that some of the Tesla video segment concepts preceded the music[4]
I recruited some of my design students at the School of Visual Arts, along with my design assistant Erik Carter and videographer Joe Hollier... and we started thinking about what we could do with the song. There were so many good ideas we decided to do nine of them and convinced the band to create a different remix of the song for each video.
- The segment that includes the studio version features Matt Villaverde skateboarding around New York City dressed as Tesla, captured on 8mm film by Joe Hollier. In the video suite this segment is represented by an image of a moustache over a skateboard.
Song Themes
Animals, Death, Educational, History, Hotels, Insanity, New York City, People (Real), Plans, Science, Skulls, Space, Weapons
Videos
- Watch it on
- Official music video with remixes - Watch it on - Slideshow video
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. Tesla is currently ranked #835 out of 1020. (82 wikians have given it an average rating of 7.40) |
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