Ding-dong! The Witch Is Dead

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Ding-dong! The Witch Is Dead
publication 1939
Author (s) Harold Arlen , EY Harburg
The Wicked Witch of the East in The Tin Woodman of Oz by Lyman Frank Baum

Ding-dong! The Witch Is Dead (dt. Ding Dong, the witch is dead! ) Is a song from the musical film The Wizard of Oz from 1939. It was founded by Harold Arlen composed, with lyrics by EY Harburg .

The song is the centerpiece of a group of several individual songs sung by the characters Dorothy Gale ( Judy Garland ) and the witch Glinda ( Billie Burke ) to celebrate the death of the Wicked Witch of the East.

Movie scene

After Dorothy arrives in Oz and has landed with her house on the Witch of the East, Glinda appears and calls the Munchkins - the short inhabitants of the country ruled by the Witch of the East - to her. Dorothy tries to explain that it wasn't magic that the Witch of the East succumbed to, but that a storm brought her from Kansas and crashed her house above the Witch. The Munchkins emerge from their hiding places slowly and frightened. When Glinda announces that the witch is dead, the Munchkins begin ding-dong! The Witch is Dead to sing. The mayor ( Charlie Becker ) greets Dorothy and has the coroner ( Meinhardt Raabe ) assure him that the witch is really dead. Then the song is sung a second time and the Munchkins celebrate until the Witch of the West appears.

style

In keeping with the Munchkin's choreography, the song is designed as a march .

Like most of the songs in the film, the lyrics are characterized by an extensive use of rhymes and puns, and attempts have been made to incorporate as many rhymes of “witch” into the lyrics as possible, e.g. B. "switch", "pitch", "itch", "ditch", "which".

The fanfare sequence contained in the song is similar to the March of the Toys from the operetta Babes in Toyland (1903) by Victor Herbert .

reception

Cover versions

Use in other productions

  • In the film Die Nackte Kanone 2½ the song is briefly intoned by a bar pianist.
  • In the song The Day that Thatcher Dies by the British rock group Hefner on the album We Love the City , released in 2000, there are also excerpts from Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead incorporated: the song ends with a children's choir singing Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead .
  • In the series The Simpsons (season 4, episode 13, Selma wants a baby), the Simpson family goes to the funeral of Marges aunt Gladys. Homer and the children sing (in the German version) a happy song about food. Marge calls them to rest and reminds them that they are going to a funeral. After two seconds of embarrassed silence, Homer agrees the song Ding Dong, the Hex is dead .

Used as a means of political expression against Margaret Thatcher

In the protest song The Day That Thatcher Dies , released in 2000, the British band Hefner sang that people would sing and dance in the streets if the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died ; her song ends with lyrics from Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead .

When she died on April 8, 2013, Ding Dong rose ! up to number 1 on the British iTunes charts and the Amazon charts. On April 14, 2013, the recording reached # 2 in the UK Top 40 .

In a remix on YouTube , pictures and video recordings of Thatcher were combined with the song during her tenure. In parallel to the lyrics in the film, she was drawn as a wicked witch whose long-awaited death was finally confirmed and a reason to celebrate.

The BBC announced on April 12, 2013 that it would not play the piece of music for "reasons of piety " during its April 14 music show The Official Chart . However, there would be reports in the news about why the piece got into the charts and also smaller excerpts from it would be played. The position of the BBC, as well as the influence of the director general of the BBC, Tony Hall , on this decision was controversial.

The rapid spread is attributed to a social media campaign that has been prepared for a long time .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Glenn Miller's hit songs on TSORT.info - The World's Music Charts
  2. ^ Radio Caroline - Sounds of 65 , Radio Caroline Charts from December 4, 1965
  3. ^ The City Sixty , Radio City Charts from November 5 to 12, 1965
  4. ↑ The Fifth Estate ( Memento of the original from January 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Chartsurfer.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.chartsurfer.de
  5. ↑ Margaret Thatcher dead: Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead tops download charts after campaign by late PM's critics , Mirror, April 9, 2013
  6. ↑ Spiegel.de: “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead ": The dead" witch "Thatcher storms the charts (accessed April 10, 2013)
  7. ^ Ruth Page: Collective Identities and Co-tellership in Facebook . In: Narratives Online. Shared stories in social media . Cambridge University Press , Cambridge 2018, ISBN 978-1-107-13991-6 , pp. 116 , doi : 10.1017 / 9781316492390.007 .
  8. ↑ R1 Chart show will not play full Margaret Thatcher song. BBC News, April 12, 2013, accessed April 12, 2013 .
  9. ↑ Lisa O'Casrroll Ding dong, the… BBC to cut Thatcher protest song short , The Guardian , April 12, 2013
  10. ↑ Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead misses number one spot . In: BBC News , April 14, 2013.