Bear with me on this one for a moment.
I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, 99% Invisible, the other day. If you haven’t started listening to that podcast yet, I highly recommend it. Anyway, the episode was about the invention of the drinking fountain and how revolutionary and life-changing it was for the people of 1859 London. The podcast belongs to, and in fact was the founding member of, a podcast collective called Radiotopia. A separate member of that collective is called Song Exploder, where they dissect songs with the writers, giving them an opportunity to explain not only the meaning, but the origin of the song, and discuss how the song was produced.
Because the two podcasts belong to the same collective, and in many ways the programs depend on one another for their own financial solvency, they are sometimes guests on one another’s shows. In this particular episode, 99PI, as it’s sometimes called, played an entire episode of a podcast by Song Exploder at the end of their episode about drinking fountains. Are you with me?
At any rate, that’s how I heard this song by the Tune-Yards. Actually, they usually write it ‘tUnE-yArDs,’ apparently. The song, I have to admit, is catchy. As I was listening to the song on the program, I wasn’t exactly sold on it, truth be told. But then I found that it was stuck in my head. That’s when I realized that I needed to post about it.
And precisely as I had hoped, the video didn’t let me down. It’s just as odd as I could have imagined given how odd the actual song is.
Tune-Yards is basically the musical creation of Merrill Garbus, who was raised in New York and Connecticut. Her music has made noise throughout the music and traditional news outlets, with her 2011 album being highly considered or rated by the likes of Time, Rolling Stone, Spin Magazine, the New York Times, and NPR. In fact, NPR featured her again for her most recent album, Nikki Nak, which contains the song above, ‘Water Fountain.’
Please let me know if it get’s stuck in your head, too!
Tune-Yards, the musical brainchild of Merrill Garbus, has been making impressive waves since 2009. (Image from her video “Water Fountain”)