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Welcome to SeeDarkly Sunday DisCOVERies:
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
We continue with this month's special feature: April Absurdities! Four wildly ridiculous covers in concept, style, or just the artists involved. Additionally, every song this month has degree of connection to our favorite prankster/absurdist musician, Weird Al Yankovic! (You can decipher those connections on your own, but I will say this week's is very tenuous and if you can figure it out, you'll earn yourself a no-prize!)
Our Third Sunday Throwback to the 20th Century for the month is an operatic new wave rendition of a song sung in film by the first of a series of "the queerest people" a wind-swept girl from Kansas ever saw!:
Klaus Nomi – Ding Dong (The Witch Is Dead) (The Munchkins)
Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead was the celebratory chorus of the Munchkins in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, heralding the announcement that the Wicked Witch of the East had been slain by Dorothy Gale's arrival in Oz by way of her tornado-displaced house. The song was composed and written respectively by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg and performed by MGM studio singers, the actors portraying the Munchkins, Billie Burke (as Glinda,) and Judy Garland (as Dorothy.) Most of the Munchkins' parts were recorded at slower tempo and dubbed in later after electronic modification to achieve the high-pitched effect of their characters' voices.
There was a reprise to the song titled Hail Hail! The Witch Is Dead intended for after the melting demise of the Wicked Witch of the West, sung by her disenchanted guards and the citizens of Emerald City, but it was struck from the film before release.
The song has been covered and parodied a few times in the years since and has appeared in various media, usually centering on a victory over a female villain of one kind or another.
It was even used as a political message after the death of the unpopular British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 2013, when an activist group used social media to spread the celebration of the moment in history with the song. Sales of the track skyrocketed, leading to it ranking a number two slot on the UK singles charts and topping the Scottish single's charts within a month following her passing, despite the fact BBC Radio 1 gave it only restricted airplay.
One cover was released as a single by the German new wave operatic contra-tenor Klaus Nomi in 1982. Simply titled Ding Dong, the single was included on his second and final album, Simple Man. His theatrical approach to music and "space-goth" appearance had already gained him a great amount of attention, though not nearly enough to make his discography much of a success. His signature cosmic-tuxedo outfit was actually inspired by that worn by David Bowie in a 1979 performance on Saturday Night Live, during which Nomi was one of Bowie's backup singers. Apart from his general affinity for presenting covers of pop hits and musical numbers in his otherworldly alternative-operatic style, there's not much to explain his specific inspiration for doing Ding Dong. In one interview he conveyed a certain desire for the fantastic, saying he thought it was "nice to be a little magical. Today we need this. All that we can read in fairy tales or books, I think somewhere it's all around us. But nowadays we can think that this magic has been killed, and I try to make it survive as long as possible."
Nomi died the year after the release of the track from complications resulting from the AIDS-related diseases he suffered.
He has certainly not been lost to obscurity though. As the popularity of the original Ding Dong grew in the British mainstream following the death of Thacher, Nomi's version circulated heavily during that period in the punk and underground scene, serving as their edgier protest of her career.
Makes you wonder what song we might use to celebrate the defeat of other particular "ding dongs" in power... though they be not necessarily "witches.":
The Cover:
The Original:(w/reprise)
Next week:
We'll followup Easter with a blend of acid and eggs from the digital down-below when we wrap up April Absurdities with an industrial rework of a farcical 90's hip hop dance sensation.
Feel free to tell me what you think about today's cover! Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome! You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened for spam prevention.
(And if, after 208 weekly entries, you find this blog of any value, please click over to my profile and find out how you can leave us a tip if you like...)
Thanks for reading and keep exploring the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Apr 14 - Discohen – Like A Virgin (Madonna)
Apr 07 - Front Line Assembly w/ Jimmy Urine – Rock Me Amadeus (Falco)
Mar 31 - Dicepeople – Strangelove (Depeche Mode)
Mar 24 - Cylab – Heart-Shaped Box (Nirvana)
Mar 17 - Strawberry Switchblade – Jolene (Dolly Parton)
. Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies .
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
We continue with this month's special feature: April Absurdities! Four wildly ridiculous covers in concept, style, or just the artists involved. Additionally, every song this month has degree of connection to our favorite prankster/absurdist musician, Weird Al Yankovic! (You can decipher those connections on your own, but I will say this week's is very tenuous and if you can figure it out, you'll earn yourself a no-prize!)
Our Third Sunday Throwback to the 20th Century for the month is an operatic new wave rendition of a song sung in film by the first of a series of "the queerest people" a wind-swept girl from Kansas ever saw!:
Klaus Nomi – Ding Dong (The Witch Is Dead) (The Munchkins)
Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead was the celebratory chorus of the Munchkins in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, heralding the announcement that the Wicked Witch of the East had been slain by Dorothy Gale's arrival in Oz by way of her tornado-displaced house. The song was composed and written respectively by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg and performed by MGM studio singers, the actors portraying the Munchkins, Billie Burke (as Glinda,) and Judy Garland (as Dorothy.) Most of the Munchkins' parts were recorded at slower tempo and dubbed in later after electronic modification to achieve the high-pitched effect of their characters' voices.
There was a reprise to the song titled Hail Hail! The Witch Is Dead intended for after the melting demise of the Wicked Witch of the West, sung by her disenchanted guards and the citizens of Emerald City, but it was struck from the film before release.
The song has been covered and parodied a few times in the years since and has appeared in various media, usually centering on a victory over a female villain of one kind or another.
It was even used as a political message after the death of the unpopular British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 2013, when an activist group used social media to spread the celebration of the moment in history with the song. Sales of the track skyrocketed, leading to it ranking a number two slot on the UK singles charts and topping the Scottish single's charts within a month following her passing, despite the fact BBC Radio 1 gave it only restricted airplay.
One cover was released as a single by the German new wave operatic contra-tenor Klaus Nomi in 1982. Simply titled Ding Dong, the single was included on his second and final album, Simple Man. His theatrical approach to music and "space-goth" appearance had already gained him a great amount of attention, though not nearly enough to make his discography much of a success. His signature cosmic-tuxedo outfit was actually inspired by that worn by David Bowie in a 1979 performance on Saturday Night Live, during which Nomi was one of Bowie's backup singers. Apart from his general affinity for presenting covers of pop hits and musical numbers in his otherworldly alternative-operatic style, there's not much to explain his specific inspiration for doing Ding Dong. In one interview he conveyed a certain desire for the fantastic, saying he thought it was "nice to be a little magical. Today we need this. All that we can read in fairy tales or books, I think somewhere it's all around us. But nowadays we can think that this magic has been killed, and I try to make it survive as long as possible."
Nomi died the year after the release of the track from complications resulting from the AIDS-related diseases he suffered.
He has certainly not been lost to obscurity though. As the popularity of the original Ding Dong grew in the British mainstream following the death of Thacher, Nomi's version circulated heavily during that period in the punk and underground scene, serving as their edgier protest of her career.
Makes you wonder what song we might use to celebrate the defeat of other particular "ding dongs" in power... though they be not necessarily "witches.":
The Cover:
The Original:(w/reprise)
Next week:
We'll followup Easter with a blend of acid and eggs from the digital down-below when we wrap up April Absurdities with an industrial rework of a farcical 90's hip hop dance sensation.
Feel free to tell me what you think about today's cover! Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome! You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened for spam prevention.
(And if, after 208 weekly entries, you find this blog of any value, please click over to my profile and find out how you can leave us a tip if you like...)
Thanks for reading and keep exploring the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Apr 14 - Discohen – Like A Virgin (Madonna)
Apr 07 - Front Line Assembly w/ Jimmy Urine – Rock Me Amadeus (Falco)
Mar 31 - Dicepeople – Strangelove (Depeche Mode)
Mar 24 - Cylab – Heart-Shaped Box (Nirvana)
Mar 17 - Strawberry Switchblade – Jolene (Dolly Parton)
. Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies .