Swamp Thing (song)

"Swamp Thing" is a song by the British techno music project The Grid. It was released as a single in 1993, and is included in The Grid's third album Evolver, being probably the best known song on the entire album. The song reached a peak position of #3 on the list of Top 25 singles in Australia and list of Top 10 singles in the UK in 1994.[1][2][3]

"Swamp Thing" is almost completely instrumental, consisting mainly of drums, synthesiser sounds and banjo. The only vocals are Well alright, watch out and Feel alright, only repeated a couple of times. The focus is on the catchy banjo tunes and the drumming. The banjo part was written and performed by the late Roger Dinsdale, a folk musician who also played the guitar and the mandolin. Roger, sadly, took his own life in July 2009[4] but his legacy lives on through this song, which is still popular today. In January 2011 the song had almost 500,000 hits on video sharing website YouTube.

Contents

Music video

"Swamp Thing" was accompanied by a music video. The video switches back and forth between two scenes: computer generated imagery of a group of robots dancing to a techno beat, and a blank white landscape with a crawling baby and music synthesiser instruments. The scene with the baby and the instruments also inspired the Evolver album cover art.

Tracklisting

UK CD Single

  1. "Swamp Thing" (radio mix) 3:56
  2. "Swamp Thing" (southern comfort mix) 7:10
  3. "Swamp Thing" (deep dub piece) 7:10
  4. "Swamp Thing" (deep piece mix) 8:53

The 12" single omits the "radio mix". Both the "radio mix" and "southern comfort mix" are alternative edits of the album mix found on Evolver.

References

  1. ^ "ARIA Charts - End Of Year Charts - Top 50 Singles 1994". Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). http://www.aria.com.au/pages/aria-charts-end-of-year-charts-top-50-singles-1994.htm. Retrieved 2009-02-21. 
  2. ^ "Official ARIA Charts". Australian Charts Portal. 2009-02-08. http://www.australian-charts.com/search.asp?search=&cat=a. Retrieved 2009-02-21. 
  3. ^ "The Official UK Charts Company". Official Charts Company. http://www.theofficialcharts.com/. Retrieved 2 January 2010. 
  4. ^ http://www.banjohangout.org/archive/153859

External links