The Guitar
From This Might Be A Wiki
Drawing, from the Apollo 18 promo, representing the song
| song name | The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | Apollo 18, The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) (Promo), Direct From Brooklyn, Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants, A User's Guide To They Might Be Giants: Melody, Fidelity, Quantity, Rhino Hi-Five: They Might Be Giants (EP), Flood + Apollo 18, 50,000,000 They Might Be Giants Songs Can't Be Wrong |
| year | 1992 |
| first played | January 23, 1992 (960 known performances) |
| run time | 3:49 |
| sung by | John Flansburgh; Laura Cantrell sings the "Lion Sleeps Tonight" chorus. |
Trivia/Info
- The theme from this song is borrowed from the Tokens hit, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". Even though these words never appear in the song, the record label insisted the subtitle appear in the song name (source: Direct From Brooklyn DVD commentary).
- The music video for the song features (extremely) brief cameos of Jon Spencer, Joshua Fried, and Robin Goldwasser. The "drummer" was played by J Otto Siebold, who had previously done the animation for the "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" video.
- Despite what you see in the video, John Linnell does not play bass guitar on this song, nor does Flansburgh play trumpets.
- Filming locations: 18 Havemeyer St, Brooklyn (John Linnell's former apartment, a.k.a. Quiet Life); McCarren Park, Brooklyn (and surrounding streets in Northside); Warsaw at The Polish National Home, Brooklyn.
- The chord images seen in the music video were mentioned by Flansburgh in the Direct From Brooklyn commentary to have originated as an idea with another director before Adam Bernstein began working with the band[1]. This director could have been Michael Overn, who briefly worked with They Might Be Giants on a scrapped music video in early 1986[2]. Flansburgh also mentioned he was self-conscious about recycling the idea for "The Guitar".
- During live performances, the bridge is replaced with a solo by either Marty Beller, Danny Weinkauf, or Dan Miller. Sometimes a future of sound prophecy is performed by John Linnell. John Flansburgh is also known to stick his guitar into the audience during parts of the song.
- Featured as background music in a 2013 television ad for the Buick Encore, "Dinosauria".
- "Boat Of Car" singer Margaret Seiler was the original choice for the vocals in the "Lion Sleeps Tonight" chorus, but she wasn't available to record.
Song Themes
Album Lead-Ins, Animals, Colors, Counting, Music, Non-John Vocals, Numbers, People (Imaginary), Precious Metal, Questions, Science, Songs With Handclaps, Space, Telecommunication, Title Not In Lyrics, TMBG Remakes, Transportation
Videos
- Watch it on
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