Come to Daddy

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Come To Daddy

EP by Aphex Twin
Released	October 6, 1997
Recorded	1996-1997
Genre	Drill n bass
Length	32:54
Label	Warp Records WAP094 Sire Records 31001-2
Producer(s)	Richard D. James
All Music Guide link Pitchfork Media 72% link
Aphex Twin chronology
Richard D. James Album (1996)	Come To Daddy (1997)	Windowlicker (1999)

Come to Daddy is a 1997 EP by electronic music artist Richard D. James, commonly known as Aphex Twin. "Come to Daddy (Pappy mix)"—often simply called "Come to Daddy"—is one of James' best-known songs.

James describes his work:

"'Come to Daddy' came about while I was just hanging around my house, getting pissed and doing this crappy death metal jingle. Then it got marketed, and a video was made, and this little idea that I had, which was a joke, turned into something huge. It wasn't right at all." [1]

As with many other Aphex Twin releases, "Come To Daddy" also spawned numerous rumours of its content; some people claim that it was written as a parody of The Prodigy, others claim that the verse "I want your soul" came from a female fan-mail to James.

1 Video
2 Track listing
3 Cover versions
4 Charts
5 External links

[edit] Video

The climactic moment of the "Come to Daddy" video

The accompanying video was directed by acclaimed director Chris Cunningham. It features a number of children, each with the maniacally-grinning head of Richard D. James, running through an industrial suburb, fighting with each other, and terrorizing helpless adults. The children are controlled by a monstrous, skinny demon (played by Al Stokes [2]) from within a television, who, at the memorable climax of the video, comes out from the TV and starts to scream louder and louder at the old lady from the beginning of the video. The video ends with the demon, now wearing James' face as well, gathering the children around itself.

[edit] Track listing

All tracks written, produced and engineered by Richard D. James, Chrysalis Music.

"Come To Daddy (Pappy Mix)" – 4:22
"Flim" – 2:57
"Come To Daddy (Little Lord Faulteroy Mix)" – 3:50
"Bucephalus Bouncing Ball" – 5:44
"To Cure A Weakling Child (Contour Regard)" – 5:10
"Funny Little Man" – 3:58
"Come to Daddy (Mummy Mix)" – 4:24
"IZ-US" – 2:57

The tracks were originally released on two separate CDs, WAP94CD and WAP94CDR, with the first four tracks on the former and the rest on the latter. These have since been deleted and replaced by one EP containing all eight tracks (WAP94CDX).

The cover of WAP94CDR

Not all the tracks featured on this album are the industrial style of the first track. "IZ-US" features mellow synth tones with jazz style drums. Each mix of "Come to Daddy" is completely different, the "Little Lord Faulteroy mix" is a calm track with bizarre vocal samples and the "Mummy mix" is a Noise music song featuring clips of James' mother talking. The other tracks also have their own style, most notably "Flim", an upbeat song with a cheerful melody and Aphex Twin's signature complex polyrhythms. The song "Funny Little Man" features, at the end, a PlainTalk voice offering anal sex, among other things.

Though Aphex Twin rarely uses vocals in his work, four of Come to Daddy's eight tracks feature prominent vocals. Because of this and the hit single title track, this EP is generally considered his most pop music work.

Come to Daddy's packaging features stark black letters against a white background. All the information, tracklistings and lyrics are printed the same way, and only two images are present, both photographed by Stefan DeBatselier and digitally altered by Chris Cunningham, using James' face on children. James has used his likeness as the artwork on five of his releases: The I Care Because You Do and Richard D. James Album albums, the Donkey Rhubarb and Come to Daddy EPs and the Windowlicker single.

The cover of the out-of-print second CD, with its white lettering against an orange background, makes reference to the fact that "To Cure A Weakling Child" had been used in a television advertisement for Orange.

[edit] Cover versions

Come to Daddy has been covered by The Dillinger Escape Plan on their EP Irony is a Dead Scene featuring Mike Patton.
The song "Flim" was covered by jazz trio The Bad Plus on their debut album These Are The Vistas.