By Uncleben
The history of music features some distinguished appearances from our furry and feathered friends in the animal kingdom, but their side of the story is rarely told. This week I managed to track down the artists responsible for some of the finest avine, bovine, elephantine, feline, galline, leonine, lupine, phocaenine and porcine contributions to popular song and got them to set the record straight.
Woody the woodpigeon (Kate Bush - Prelude)
Kate had written out some ideas for the track, but I've never learned musical notation, so I just had to wing it. It was me who hit on the main riff. Kate mimicked my cooing on the piano, and it evolved from there. I invited in some blackbirds I knew to provide a dawn chorus, and we got Kate's son to recite the spoken word accompaniment. We were thrilled with how it all came together.
Geraldine the wren (The Durutti Column - Sketch for Summer)
The interwebs claim that producer Martin Hannett got the bird sounds from a synthesizer. But I'm sorry, that's bollocks. Hannett and I worked together for hours to create the aural backdrop. Vini Reilly then strapped on his guitar and started playing - and out came these amazing honey-dripping sounds, seemingly suspended in mid-air. Vini is a musical genius - real nice fellow too.
Randy the raven (Cosmo Sheldrake - Pliocene)
I'd arranged for a soundscape ecologist to come down here to the Algonquin National Park to record a demo tape that I could send to some major labels. Producer Matthew Herbert heard the tape and suggested I collaborate on this song. Cosmo claimed that the drums on the track were made of fish and were recorded by the US military in the Cold War to distinguish fish from Soviet submarines, but he may have been pulling my leg.
Geoffrey the lion (Culture - Get Ready to Ride the Lion to Zion)
I'd worked with Jagger and Richards on Exile on Mane Street. They recommended me to producer Joe Gibbs, who asked me to join recording sessions for what became the Two Sevens Clash album. Joe set me up at the back of his Kingston studio with a rotting antelope carcass and a party pack of Red Stripe - and Sly Dunbar hit me gingerly on the rump with a drumstick each time they wanted me to roar.
Roar power
Nellie the elephant (King Crimson - Elephant Talk)
After packing my trunk and saying goodbye to the circus, I took on a new identity in Hindustan and started life as a session musician, working with the likes of Tom Tom Club (L'éléphant) and Missy Elliott (Work It). This is me performing with Adrian Belew, Robert Fripp, Tony Levin and Bill Bruford on a track from the fabulous Discipline album. When Adrian made those mice sounds on his guitar, it scared the living daylights out of me.
Glenn the rooster (George Duke - Down in It)
I flew in all the way from Reno to the Paramount Recording Studios in Los Angeles to appear as guest vocalist on this cut. George had neglected to mention that the track time was less than 90 seconds. We spent a few minutes multi-layering some clucking. I then did the four cockadoodledoos in just one take and I was out of there.
Corny the chicken (The Meters - Chicken Strut)
The band's first two albums hadn't featured any singing, so I was drafted in as vocal coach for the sessions that yielded the eggs-cellent Struttin' LP. Producer Allen Toussaint asked me to duet with the boys on the album opener. Some critics accused me of cultural appropriation for imitating how a human would make chicken noises. But that's the way Allen asked me to do it. So the critics can go cluck themselves.
Binx the cat (The Presidents of the United States of America - Kitty)
Singer Chris Ballew had tried to purr-suade at least a dozen other cats to miaow on the band's debut single, but they had all studiously ignored him or decided it just wasn't what they called mew-sic. I needed the bucks, though.
Trevor the porpoise (Kramer - Welcome Home)
Some critics questioned what the sound of a porpoise had to do with Mark Kramer's lyrics. None of them thought to question what his singing had to do with my much more poignant lyrics, which scandalously remain untranslated on any lyrics sites. I struck up quite a rapport with guitarist Randolph A. Hudson III, who was familiar with my Bowie collaboration on Cetacean to Cetacean - and our musical duelling in the so-called instrumental break is, I think, up there with anything by Lynyrd Skynyrd, Thin Lizzy or the Allman Brothers.
Beatriz the pig (Hermeto Pascoal - Slaves Mass (Missa Dos Escravos))
I was one of a group of specially selected pigs escorted to a Los Angeles recording studio one day in 1977 to perform live with an all-star line up of Hermeto, singer Flora Purim, guitarist David Amaro, bassists Ron Carter and Alphonso Johnson, and drummers Airto Moreira and Chester Thompson. Hermeto was quite the perfectionist - it took dozens of takes before he was happy with the timbre and pitch of our grunting. We went on to win a Hammy for outstanding porcine performance of the year.
Daisy and Maisy the cows (The Congos - Children Crying)
We were in clover to be invited to Lee Scratch Perry's Black Ark studio as backing singers for Congo Ashanti Roy. When we got peckish and asked for some grass, Scratch misunderstood - and, by the time this song came to be recorded, we were frankly off our udders. But the results were stunningly beautiful, even if we say so ourselves, and paved the way for our later work with Pat Benatar (Love Is a Cattle Field) and the Pogues (Dairy Tale of New York).
Henri the wolf (CANO - Spirit of the North)
CANO were the Coopérative des artistes du Nouvel Ontario, an agricultural and artistic commune established in the early 1970s. My contribution to their second album was brief - I was quickly shepherded out of the studio before I could attack the chorus of crickets and the loon soloist. But I'm proud to have appeared on a record that so beautifully captured the spirit of rural Canada.
The Animal Magic A-List Playlist
Kate Bush - Prelude
The Durutti Column - Sketch for Summer
Cosmo Sheldrake - Pliocene
Culture - Get Ready to Ride the Lion to Zion
King Crimson - Elephant Talk
George Duke - Down in It
The Meters - Chicken Strut
The Presidents of the United States of America - Kitty
Kramer - Welcome Home
Hermeto Pascoal - Slaves Mass (Missa Dos Escravos)
The Congos - Children Crying
CANO - Spirit of the North
The Buzzing, Barking and Braying B-List Playlist:
Lily Hunter Green - Composed
For her installation Bee Composed, Green converted Piano 1 into a working beehive and used Piano 2 to play a composition devised with the sounds made by the bees in Piano 1, though birdsong predominates. Designed to raise awareness of the global fall-out predicted from the diminishing number of bees.
The Avalanches - Summer Crane
The first sampled vocal is by the recently departed Françoise Hardy.
Tomita - Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells (from Pictures at an Exhibition)
Splendidly unhinged re-imagining of the Modest Mussorgsky original.
Ratatat - Wildcat
The BBC's music website recommended this as an excellent song to do 'air claws' along with.
The Beatles - Hey Bulldog
My favourite of the Beatles tunes nominated this week. Sadly not quite enough barking to make the A-list.
Slim Gaillard - Chicken Rhythm
The joke somewhat wears off by the end, but it must have seemed thrillingly subversive in 1953.
Tommy James & the Shondells - I Think We're Alone Now
Apart from all those crickets.
Fenster - Cat Emperor
From an album recorded in a cabin in East Germany, with the whole house wired up to capture sounds like those of the animals in the yard.
Adrian Sherwood - Animal Magic
Featuring charming wordplay between Sherwood's daughters (Denise and Emily) and Lee Scratch Perry.
Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks - The Euphonious Whale
Those expecting any whale sounds will be disappointed.
Håkon Stene & Matthew Shlomowitz - Popular Concepts 8: V. Royalty Free
In the words of the nominator, nosuchzone: “A mad gallop through a museum of royalty free library recordings, with overlaid percussion and a good deal of expert knob twiddling. Begins with a hi-ho-silver-away neigh and hooves making dust, and doesn’t stop until well out over the cliff edge, still pedalling furiously, and the deep gulch a nest of ants below.”
Einojuhani Rautavaara - Cantus Arcticus: II. Melankolia
Rautavaara's concerto for birds and orchestra incorporates tape recordings of birdsong recorded in northern Finland near the Arctic Circle. The second movement features a slowed-down recording of the song of the shore lark.
Guru’s Wildcard Picks:
Prince Fatty & Horseman - Horsemove (Mungo's Hi Fi Mix)
Reggae drummer Horseman's legendary 1985 single, complete with its own dance move, here given the Prince Fatty treatment and a tad more whinnying.
Jockstrap - Concrete Over Water
One reviewer warned that, if you have a dog, it may start barking along at the chorus.
Jimi Tenor - Call of the Wild
By hook or by crook, I'll get this into the Marconium one of these days.
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations in response to last week's topic: Zoomusicology: songs and music featuring animal sounds. The next topic will launch on Thursday after 1pm UK time.
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