Rabid Child
From This Might Be A Wiki
| song name | Rabid Child |
| artist | They Might Be Giants |
| releases | 1985 Promotional Demo Tape #2, 1985 Promotional Demo Tape #7, 1985 Demo Tape, They Might Be Giants, Then: The Earlier Years |
| year | 1985 |
| first played | March 1, 1985 (21 known performances) |
| run time | 1:31 |
| sung by | John Flansburgh, John Linnell joins in the bridge |
Trivia/Info
- This song is likely thematically inspired by "Teddy Bear," a 1976 song by country musician Red Sovine. The song details a story of a young paraplegic boy who, using the handle "Teddy Bear," befriends a number of truckers over his late father's citizens band (CB) radio. "Teddy Bear" is also referenced in "Trucker's Coffee," a spoken-word piece by Flansburgh which is based on several Red Sovine songs.
- "Hammer down" is a CB radio slang term that means to accelerate quickly, similar to "floor it." "Rabbit ears" refers to the twin radio antennas on either side of a truck, and can be interpreted as slang for "tuning in."
- The verse lyrics make reference to "Chess Piece Face," another song on the band's debut album. Both songs are also referenced in "Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal" — "You know the Rabid Child is still tuning in / Chess Piece Face's patience must be wearing thin."
- The sample of speech at the beginning of the song says "Lord, please don't take me away." The source of this sample has not yet been identified by fans.
- John Flansburgh commented on the song's bass synthesizer sound in 2014: "It was from one of two very shiny and brand new synths that belonged to Studio PASS (Public Access Synthesizer Studio) where we made the first half of the first album. It was either the Fairlight (probably most clearly demoed in the opening of Do They Know It's Christmas) OR it was this rack mounted Yamaha [TX816]".[1]
- The low synth heard throughout the song is the Fairlight CMI stock sample "CHOIR3." Flansburgh spoke about the synth in a 2021 Tumblr post: "I remember being very impressed with the richness of the "pad" John overdubbed on the Studio PASS recording of Rabid Child, replacing the kind of simple and cheesy sounding chords created on the four track in our rehearsal space in Brooklyn."
- The band created a music video for "Rabid Child" which has never been released. It was was recorded in 1985 or 1986, in the kitchen of Flansburgh's apartment. The video was created by the band themselves; Adam Bernstein (director of most of the band's early videos) had no involvement.[2] The video ultimately didn't meet the band's standards, and they decided against releasing it.
- While the full music video has not been released, a short clip of it was included in the documentary Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns. Director AJ Schnack appealed for the full music video to be included as a bonus feature on the film's DVD, but the band refused.[3] Schnack: "I promised fans that I would ask John and John about including the full piece and I was quickly (but politely) laughed out of the room (or would have been if we had been in the same room)."[4]
- The 12-second clip in Gigantic gives a glimpse of two shots from the music video. The first shows John Flansburgh, John Linnell and (presumably) Bill Krauss wearing cardboard masks of Arthur Koestler and Liaquat Ali Khan. The second shot shows Linnell playing an accordion with a large bicorne-like hat on his head, and Flansburgh singing while holding his homemade prototype Chessmaster guitar. The rest of the video is said to consist mostly of Flansburgh singing into the camera while hugging the door.[5]
- A different mix of this song appears on the band's 1985 Demo Tape. This version features slightly different drums, less reverb, and a noticeably wider stereo mix than the final song. The music video uses this early mix, which might suggest that the video predates the release of the band's debut album.
Song Themes
Animals, Children, Games, Medical, Occupations, People (Imaginary), Recycled Material, Religion, Supernatural, Self-Reference, Size, Songs With Samples, Telecommunication, Transportation
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. Rabid Child is currently ranked #527 out of 1018. (162 wikians have given it an average rating of 8.22) |
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