In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (song)
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- This article is about the song. For the album, see In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (album).
| "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
||
| Single by Iron Butterfly | ||
| from the album In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida | ||
| Released | 1968 | |
| Recorded | 1968 | |
| Genre | Rock | |
| Length | 17:02 (album version) 2:54 (single edit) |
|
| Label | Atco Records | |
| Writer(s) | Doug Ingle | |
| Producer(s) | Don Casale | |
"In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida", released in 1968, was a 17-minute rock song by Iron Butterfly, released on their album In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, occupying the entire second side of the album. The lyrics are simple, and heard only at the beginning and the end.
A commonly repeated story says that the song's title was originally "In the Garden of Eden," but in the course of rehearsing and recording singer Doug Ingle slurred the words into the nonsense phrase of the title while under the influence of LSD. The truth (according to the liner notes on 'the best of' CD compilation) is that drummer Ron Bushy was listening to the track through headphones, and couldn't hear correctly; he simply distorted what Doug Ingle answered when Ron asked him for the title of the song. (An alternate version of the story, as stated in the liner notes of the 1995 re-release of the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album, states that Ingle was drunk when he first told Bushy the title, so Bushy wrote it down. Bushy then showed Ingle what he had written, and the slurred title stuck.) Another theory is that the misspelled words are actually "Bhagavad Gita" which is the name of an epic Hindu poem.
The song features a memorable guitar and bass riff, and repeats this riff for almost the entire length of the song. The riff is used as the basis for extended organ and guitar solos, which are interrupted in the middle by an extended drum solo, one of the first such solos on a rock record, and probably one of the most famous in rock. The version edited and released as a single omits instrumental solos and leaves roughly three minutes of music. When Doug Ingle originally wrote the song, he had not intended for it to run seventeen minutes long.[1]
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The song is significant in rock history because, together with Blue Cheer and Steppenwolf, it marks the point when psychedelic music produced heavy metal. Later 1970s heavy metal and progressive rock acts like Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin owe much of their sound, and even more of their live acts, to this recording. In 1987, thrash metal band Slayer, covered this song on a soundtrack for a movie. In 2006, German power metal band Blind Guardian, covered "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" on their "Fly" single, Slayer's cover is about 3:20 and Blind Guardian's cover is around 3:40. Also in 2006 Larry Rust, Iron Butterfly's keyboardist from 1999-2005, did an 8 1/2-minute version of this song and can be heard on his myspace; it is not clear if it will be released on any upcoming albums.
Hip-Hop artist Nas has done two songs that have sampled this same song: first was "Thief's Theme", the bonus track from his 2004 album Street's Disciple and the second was the title track of his upcoming 2006 album Hip-Hop is Dead ("Thief's Theme" sampled a cover version performed by the Incredible Bongo Band, "Hip-Hop Is Dead" sampled the original done by Iron Butterfly).
The song was notably featured on a Halloween episode of Home Improvement, played by Tim during a fake alien landing he staged to scare Randy and Brad. It also features prominently in the climax of the film Manhunter; an edited 8:20 version is featured on the soundtrack album. The song was referenced in the episode of The Simpsons called Bart Sells His Soul when Bart tricked the entire congregation of a church into singing it by passing it off as a hymn called "In the Garden of Eden" by I. Ron Butterfly.
[edit] Notes
- ^ In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida Deluxe Edition (Compact Disc liner notes)
