In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

This article is about the song. For the album, see In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (album).

"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"
Song

"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is a seventeen-minute, ten-second rock song by Iron Butterfly, released on their 1968 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.

Overview

The song is significant in rock history because, together with Blue Cheer and Steppenwolf, it marks the point when psychedelic music produced heavy metal. A commonly repeated story says that the song's title was originally "In the Garden of Eden" or "In the Garden of Venus" but in the course of rehearsing and recording, singer Doug Ingle was intoxicated and accidentally slurred the words, creating the mondegreen that stuck as the title. However, the liner notes on 'the best of' CD compilation state 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 (which was originally In-The-Garden-Of-Eden). 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. Yet another possible (and much more true) version of this story is that,lead vocalist, Doug Ingle (a devout and raised to be so) Christian wrote the song: In The Garden of Eden,expressing his religion, bringing this "gospel" if you will to the record executives. In turn they decided that this was not the way to go, they changed the spelling of In the Garden of Eden, to In a Gadda Da Vida severley changing the strong religious overtones into a more subtle (and marketable) undertone. While the song still (most likely) reflects Ingle's religious beleifs it had now become a chart topping single, rocketing Iron Butterfly into history and assuring that they will never be forgoten. Although it is not widely known, this track was produced by Shadow Morton at the same small studio in Hempstead, L.I. where he also created the 'Vanilla Fudge Sound'.

Musical composition

File:Iron Butterfly In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida Riff.PNG

The song features a memorable guitar and bass riff which functions as an ostinato repeated for almost the entire length of the song. It is also 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 one of the most famous in rock. What made this particular drum solo unique was its surreal tribal sound. Bushy had his drums miked and fed into a rotating Leslie speaker to give them a phasing sound and also took the bottoms off his toms to give them a more heavy sound. It's then followed by Doug Ingle's ethereal polyphonic organ solo (which resembles variations on "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen") to the accompaniment of drums (beginning around 6 minutes and 10 seconds). There are then interludes in cut time and a reprise of the original theme and vocals.

Live version

A live version reaching over 17 minutes long was released as part of their 1970 live album. This version, however, has evidence of heavy editing from the actual live recording. The guitar solo, for example, seems to have been recorded in a studio or somewhere else where there was no audience in attendance. The live version also lengthens the drums solo by roughly 4 minutes and the organ solo by about 1 minute. The version also omits the bass and drum solo jam (heard from 13:04-15:19 on the studio recording). The version that was edited and released as a single omits the 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. However, Ingle said that he "knew there would be slots for solos." As it turned out, during live renditions of the song, Erik Brann's (guitar) and Ron Bushy's (drum) solos varied from performance to performance, while Ingle's organ solo remained the same.

Cover versions

• In 1968 Peruvian Rock band (Saint Thomas) Pepper Smelter recorded a cover for the album "Soul & Pepper". Gerardo Manuel Rojas was the lead singer. 5 min 05 sec.
• In 1973, Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band did a cover of this song recorded on their first album, Bongo Rock.
• In 1976, The Residents presented a version on their album The Third Reich 'n' Roll (simultaneously with versions of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" and elements of the Beatles' "Hey Jude" and the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil").
• In 1978, Munich ensemble Disco Circus covered the song for the album Over and Over.
• In 1980, Boney M. covered it in a 9-minutes 12" version.
• In 1984, "Weird Al" Yankovic included a portion of this song in his "Polkas On 45" medley, which can be found on his second album, "In 3-D."
• In 1987, thrash metal band Slayer, covered this song on the soundtrack of Less Than Zero. This cover version ran 4:13.
• In 1988, Frank Zappa used the main riff for a song called In-A-Gadda-Stravinsky, from his album Guitar.
• In 1998, the song is covered by doom metal band Church of Misery and it is the last track on Taste the Pain.
• In 2004, the UK band Senser uses samples from the solo at 13:12 in their song 'Formula Milk', on the album SCHEMAtic.
• In 2006, German power metal band Blind Guardian, covered "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" on their "Fly" single. Blind Guardian's cover is around 3:40.
• In 2006, The Tuvan Band Yat-Kha covered "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" in the distinctive throat singing style on their album "Re-Covers"
• 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 page. It is not clear if it will be released on any upcoming album.
• In 2007, radio station WFMU ran a contest for listeners to re-edit songs down to 60 seconds. A truncated version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was entered.
• Also in 2007, the Welsh drum and bass producer and DJ High Contrast released a drum and bass version of the song.[1]
• March 2008 (planned release date) Nash The Slash's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Nash" album contains a version (8 minutes and 49 seconds). A preview of the song was released on the Nash the Slash official MySpace page

References in popular culture

• The song was featured at the beginning of an episode of Medium entitled 1-900-Lucky

• The song's familiar riff was borrowed by the group Chase for the end of their one-hit wonder "Get It On".

• In the English dub of the Lupin III film The Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure, Inspector Zenigata sings a song called "Zen-i-gata-Da-Vida"

• The song itself was notably featured on an episode of Home Improvement, played by Tim during a fake alien landing he staged to scare Randy and Brad.

• In another episode of Home Improvement, Tim claims that if he hadn't gotten married he would still be driving around in his van all day listening to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida on eight-tracks.

• It is also featured prominently in the climax of the film Manhunter. An edited 8:20 version is featured on the soundtrack album.

• In the movie Killers (aka Real Killers) the song features very heavily, almost being the only score throughout the film, and was often split up; with various pieces of the song being used for dramatic effect.

• The song is also present in the sixth Leisure Suit Larry game, Love for Sail, in which the main character undergoes a severe hallucination after consuming a spiked drink.

• The song is also featured in the motion picture Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare when Spencer (played by Breckin Meyer) smokes a joint, passes out, and gets sucked into the TV.

• In an episode of Bobby's World, a stone-age Uncle Ted sings the song in a thick caveman accent during one of Bobby's Mittyesque fantasies.

• In an episode of Rugrats titled "Angelica the Magnificent", Angelica uses 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' as a magic word (as opposed to, for example, Abra Kadabra)

• In a Christmas episode of Wings, Lowell is out in the hangar beating on a set of drums, not to any particular song. Fay calls him into the terminal and asks what he is doing. Lowell answers: "That was the drum solo to 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida'."

• 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 2006 album Hip Hop Is Dead using the guitar riff and bassline in the single. ( "Thief's Theme" sampled the cover version performed by the Incredible Bongo Band while Hip Hop is Dead used a re-recorded version performed by Iron Butterfly).

• In an episode of The Angry Beavers, Treeflower's doorbell is the main riff of this song.

• In the Fun Lovin' Criminals' song, "The Grave and the Constant", Huey Morgan states, "I got more endurance than In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".

• In Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, when Chop Top first confronts Stretch in the radio station he requests the song. However, he mistakenly refers to the song as "In-a-vida-da-gadda baby".

• In the comic strip Zits, one of Jeremy Duncan's friends, Pierce, has Ron Bushy's drum solo as his cell phone ringtone. In the strip, the first two syllables of the song are misspelled "Inna."

• The song is played in episode six of Supernatural, 'Skin'

• The song is played during an episode of the TV series House M.D. when a patient is given Psilocybin mushrooms.

• Lyrics of ”Paradise of Sin”, a song by German band Die Krupps starts: ”In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, baby, God is dead. He lost the battle.”

• Every Saturday Night, on the XM Satellite Radio Station, Deep Tracks, the full length studio version is played at 11:00 PM

• On the show "That '70's Show" Fez sings the song's title, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" while listening to the song via record, with Hyde.

• The song is played in the second episode of Quantum Leap.

• It appears in the Space Ghost Coast to Coast episode Sleeper, where Space Ghost sings "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida Baby, don't you know that I'll always be true. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Zorak."

• In the Cory in the House episode Bahavian Idol, part of Cory's spell to get rid of Meena's curse contains the words, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida ".

• The song is used on an episode of The Wonder Years, on the episode "Night Out", when Kevin and Winnie enter the make-out room.

• The song is heard in the background of a party scene during the movie Superbad.

• The song has also been featured as background music for a Fidelity Financial TV advertisement.

• It is featured in the film Resident Evil: Extinction when we are first introduced to Claire's convoy.

• In "The Slicer" episode of Seinfeld Elaine turns on her bedside radio in order to drown out the sound of her neighbourd cat and "Slowride" by Foghat plays first and "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is played later on.
• In the 33. episode of the Bastard Operator From Hell 2007 series, the song is used in conjunction with ECT as a means of ridding people of their hobby of playing with archaic computers.

• A reference to the song was made in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, when Mike, Crow and Tom Servo are panning the B-movie Girls Town. In a nightclub scene where showcased star Paul Anka is endlessly performing his hit song Lonely Boy, Mike mutters, "This is going on longer than In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida."

• In the episode Bart Sells His Soul of The Simpsons, Bart secretly replaces his church service's hymn sheet with sheet music to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, which Rev. Lovejoy announces as "In The Garden of Eden by I. Ron Butterfly". Homer reminds Marge that they used to "make out to this hymn". At the end of the song, the church organist passes out. Also in the Simpsons, the song is again referenced during many of the character Otto's drug induced hallucinations. Also, in the episode "Stark Raving Dad", when it is announced on the radio that Michael Jackson will be visiting Springfield, the DJ announces "While we check it out, why don't you listen to this extra loooooong version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida."

• The song was featured in the PC game Postal 2. When the player's character smokes catnip, he says "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Baby."

• The song is the only one played through episode 407, "Sympathy for the Devil", of the 4th. season of La Femme Nikita TV series.

• A variation of the song is used for the theme music for hip hop artist André 3000's animated series Class of 3000.

• Also referenced in the fifth season, episode 99, of Gilmore Girls. Gil asks a traditional Korean musical group if they know how to play In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

• Drum & Bass DJ and producer High Contrast remixed this song and it can be found in his new album "Tough guys don't dance"

• Also put in an act on a show by the comedian Andrew "Dice" Clay back in the early 90's. and I know b/c my name is Davida and I have very very much distaste for him because thanks to him, every day in school they use to sing "Inna Gadda Davidaaa Baby!!"