Revision as of 17:16, 15 July 2008

Screen capture from "Orange" Sesame Street vignette

Samples/Lyrics

• Aquarius contains a sample from the song of the same name on Galt MacDermot's 1979 soundtrack for the film "Hair" (the slap bass riff that's present throughout the Boards of Canada version).
• Contains a sample from a sketch in a vintage Sesame Street episode (Orange).
• Contains samples from yet another vintage Sesame Street episode (children's laughter and the "yeah, that's right" sample).
• At 2:40, "Aquarius (Version 3)" from the Peel Session contains a sample from "Audiotrack 12" from Old Tunes Vol. 1 side A.^[1]
• A sequence of numbers is read by a professional-sounding woman's voice that strongly resembles the voice-over in "One Very Important Thought," except that domain-specific speech synthesis is used, giving the numbers a robotic quality. The sequence varies:
  • On Music Has the Right to Children: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 44, 68, 27, 35, 42, 58, 47, 63, 85, 74, 67, 66, 51, 79, 42, 24, 45, sixty-ten, 6, 7, 56, 65, 44, 53, 44, 17, 13, 23"
  • In Version 3, the sequence ends with "...42, 24, 45, sixty-ten, 64, 47, 52, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23"
• The same voice that recites the number sequence says "Orange".
• A chorused male voice sings "I'm listening" (Version 3 only)
• At 4:40, a synthesized male voice says "sixtyten new aquarius" (Version 3 only)^[2]
• A girl's voice saying what is believed to be the phrase "for Sandisons." ^[3]

Cultural References

• One number heard throughout the sequence is sixtyten, a reference to the song of the same name on this album but also the brother's own label, Music70.
• 23, another number heard in the sequence (especially in Version 3), is a prominent theme in the Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. "23" occurrs five times at the end of the sequence in Version 3; another major theme in the same book is the "law of fives". The band has cited Robert Anton Wilson as an influence on their work^[4], and their music has appeared on the sountrack of Maybe Logic: The Lives And Ideas Of Robert Anton Wilson.^[5]

Versions

• Has appeared in several forms, notably on the Aquarius 7" Single and also on the Peel Session recordings. This track also appears on Hexstatic's 2003 "Solid Steel" mix for the electronic label Ninja Tune.

References

1. ↑ http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4227
2. ↑ http://fredd-e.narfum.org/boc/lyrics/#peel
3. ↑ http://fredd-e.narfum.org/boc/lyrics/#mhtrtc
4. ↑ http://www.solesides.com/winblad/boards%20of%20canada/bocehx.html
5. ↑ http://www.discogs.com/release/645609

External Links

• The original Aquarius, from the movie "Hair"
• The Sesame Street vignette which contains the Orange sample
• The Sesame Street vignette with the children's laughter and the "yeah, that's right" vocal heard in Aquarius (heard at roughly 10 seconds into the video)