Tangerine Dream are considered a pioneering act in electronica. Their work with the electronic music Ohr label produced albums that had a pivotal role in the development of the German musical scene known as kosmische ("cosmic"). Their "Virgin Years", so called because of their association with Virgin Records, produced albums that further explored synthesizers and sequencers, including the UK top 20 albums Phaedra (1974) and Rubycon (1975). The group also had a successful career composing film soundtracks, creating over 60 scores, which include those for the films Sorcerer, Thief, The Soldier, Risky Business, Flashpoint, The Keep, Firestarter, Legend, Three O'Clock High, Near Dark, Shy People, and Miracle Mile.
From the late 1990s into the 2000s, Tangerine Dream continued to explore other styles of instrumental music as well as electronica. Their recorded output has been prolific, including over one hundred albums. Among other scoring projects, they helped create the soundtrack for the video game Grand Theft Auto V. Their mid-1970s work has been profoundly influential in the development of electronic music styles such as new age (although the band themselves disliked the term) and electronic dance music.
Their most recent album of all-new music, Quantum Gate, was released on 29 September 2017. In December 2019, the band released Recurring Dreams, a compilation of new recordings of some of the band's classic compositions.
The group is currently working on a new album as a four-piece to be released in 2021 via Kscope.
Tangerine Dream began as a surreal rock band, with each of the members contributing different musical influences and styles. Edgar Froese's guitar style was inspired by Jimi Hendrix, while Christopher Franke contributed the more avant garde elements of Karlheinz Stockhausen and Terry Riley. Yes-like progressive rock influence was brought in by Steve Jolliffe on Cyclone. The sample-based sound collages of Johannes Schmoelling drew their inspiration from a number of sources; one instance is Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians on parts of Logos Live, and the track "Love on a Real Train" from the Risky Business soundtrack.
Classical music has had an influence on the sound of Tangerine Dream over the years. György Ligeti, Johann Sebastian Bach, Pierre Boulez, Iannis Xenakis, Maurice Ravel, and Arcangelo Corelli are clearly visible as dominant influences in the early albums. A Baroque sensibility sometimes informs the more coordinated sequencer patterns, which has its most direct expression in the La Folia section that comes at the very end of the title track of Force Majeure. In live performances, the piano solos often directly quoted from Romantic classical works for piano, such as the Beethoven and Mozart snippets in much of the late 1970s – early 1980s stage shows. In the bootleg recording of the Mannheim Mozartsaal concert of 1976 (Tangerine Tree volume 13), the first part of the first piece also clearly quotes from Franz Liszt's Totentanz. The first phrase is played on a harpsichord synthesizer patch and is answered by the second half of the phrase in a flute voicing on a Mellotron. During the 1990s, many releases included recordings of classical compositions: Pictures at an Exhibition (on Turn of the Tides), Largo (from Xerxes) (on Tyranny of Beauty), Symphony in A Minor (by J. S. Bach), and Concerto in A Major / Adagio (by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) (both on Ambient Monkeys).
Since the 1990s, Tangerine Dream have also recorded cover versions of Jimi Hendrix' "Purple Haze" (first on 220 Volt Live) and The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", "Back in the U.S.S.R.", "Tomorrow Never Knows", and "Norwegian Wood".
An infrequently recurring non-musical influence on Tangerine Dream, and Edgar Froese in particular, have been 12th–19th-century poets. This was first evident on the 1981 album Exit, the track title "Pilots of the Purple Twilight" being a quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem Locksley Hall. Six years later, the album Tyger featured poems from William Blake set to music; and around the turn of the millennium, Edgar Froese started working on a musical trilogy based on Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, completed in 2006. Most recently, the 2007 album Madcap's Flaming Duty features more poems set to music, some again from Blake but also e.g. Walt Whitman.
Pink Floyd were also an influence on Edgar Froese and Tangerine Dream, the band in its very early psychedelic rock band phase playing improvisations based on Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive". Madcap's Flaming Duty is dedicated to the memory of the late Syd Barrett. The title refers to Barrett's solo release "The Madcap Laughs".
The band's influence can be felt in ambient artists such as Deepspace, The Future Sound of London, David Kristian, and Global Communication, as well as rock, pop, and dance artists such as Porcupine Tree, M83, DJ Shadow, Ulrich Schnauss, Cut Copy, and Kasabian. The band also clearly influenced 1990s and 2000s trance music, where lush soundscapes and synth pads are used along with repetitive synth sequences, much like in their 1975 releases Rubycon and Ricochet, as well as some of their music from the early 1980s. The group have also been sampled countless times, more recently by Recoil on the album SubHuman, by Sasha on Involver, and on several Houzan Suzuki albums. Michael Jackson also cited Tangerine Dream as one of his favourite bands, especially their 1977 soundtrack for Sorcerer.
Bent Cold Sidewalk
Tangerine Dream Lyrics
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O great trees who have learned to speak slowly
I know that they believe that they have an answer
Then I walk in the city where I cannot hear it
When I talk to the city
I have already learned three answers
Before I call the question
But can not hear myself wishing
When I talk to the people
Who are the trees that grow in the city
They reply with a fond kindness, slowly
But there is no answer
For experience to be made by mistake
Upon this key, time will slide,
Beyond the lock, you lose your mind.
And as our door becomes open,
A rush of sound is found inside
Creating dreams that pass you by.
You may live through your life a long long time
But you will never know from where it came,
Yet all you've seen is what you've wanted to,
You're walking forward as you look behind,
Still watching those old memories fade and die
This door is heavy, and is deeply stained,
With wasted tears, that try to fight in vain,
You may be sitting, feeling quite secure,
But listen carefully, and this key is yours
For we can lead you far beyond that door
There are dangers hidden, trust in that language
And it is precisely this conception that which must not be changed
The epitome of our language is patterns containment of thought and sound
Shouting nonsense words
I die to fight!!
I die to fight!!
I die to fight!!
Shouting nonsense words
Upon this key, time will slide,
Beyond each lock, you lose your mind.
And as our door becomes open,
A rush of sound is found inside
Creating dreams that pass you by..
Bent cold sidewalk, open the gate,
I may be late but I can no longer wait.
Stealing the crown that stood me up,
I'm laying the table with dusty plates.
Bent cold sidewalk, open the gate,
I may be late but I can no longer wait.
Playing the god to fix your gaze,
I'm holding you firm on another day.
Bent cold sidewalk, open the gate,
I may be late but I can no longer wait.
The lyrics to the song "Bent Cold Sidewalk" by Tangerine Dream speak about a person's search for answers in three different settings: nature, the city, and among people. The singer first turns to the trees, who he believes can speak slowly and may have an answer to his questions. However, when he is back in the city, where he cannot hear the trees, he feels lost and disconnected. Even though he has learned a few answers from the city, he longs to be among the trees again. The people he talks to in the city seem kind, but they do not offer any answers that can be gained through making mistakes.
The song conveys a sense of longing and search for something deeper, beyond what can be found in everyday life. The lyrics suggest that the singer might find what he is looking for by unlocking a door that leads to his inner self, but this path is fraught with danger. The final verse of the song seems to be a call to action for the singer to move forward and not wait any longer, even if it means leaving behind something or someone valuable.
Overall, the lyrics to "Bent Cold Sidewalk" touch on themes of existential questioning, alienation, and the struggle to find one's way in life. The song seems to suggest that there is no easy answer to these questions, but that searching and taking risks can lead to meaningful experiences.
Line by Line Meaning
When I talk to the trees
As I contemplate nature and its beauty,
O great trees who have learned to speak slowly
I am amazed at the wisdom trees possess and how they communicate with ease
I know that they believe that they have an answer
I am convinced that they must have answers to life's most complex questions
Then I walk in the city where I cannot hear it
But as I leave nature and enter the city, the answer seems to fade away, and I can no longer hear it
When I talk to the city
As I exist within urban spaces and structures,
I have already learned three answers
I begin to think about potential answers and solutions to problems I might face here in the city
Before I call the question
Even before I have formulated any question in particular,
And slowly, I wish myself among trees
I long to be back in nature where I am sure the answer exists
But can not hear myself wishing
Sadly, in the city, my own desires seem to be lost in all the noise around me
When I talk to the people
As I interact with those living within the city,
Who are the trees that grow in the city
I recognize that people are like the trees in the city - beautiful and unique, yet surrounded by concrete buildings and distractions
They reply with a fond kindness, slowly
Despite all this, people are typically kind and empathetic towards others, though they may communicate slowly
But there is no answer
Sadly, even with all these interactions and conversations, the answer still eludes me
For experience to be made by mistake
I realize that experience cannot be made through mistakes but through learning and understanding
Upon this key, time will slide,
On this note, time seems to slip away,
Beyond the lock, you lose your mind.
And as one gets closer to understanding the answer, the mind seems to slip away with time
And as our door becomes open,
But if one should be able to unlock the door and transcend to a new level of understanding,
A rush of sound is found inside
A vast new world of sounds and experiences exists on the other side
Creating dreams that pass you by.
A world that can foster dreams and aspirations that one may eventually forget
You may live through your life a long long time
As we move through life, this search for understanding and answers is ongoing
But you will never know from where it came,
But despite that continuous search, we may never fully understand where the answer came from or how we obtained it
Yet all you've seen is what you've wanted to,
Even so, everything we experience may be a result of what we wanted to see or believe about the world
You're walking forward as you look behind,
Inevitably, we move forward, but our memories and experiences remain with us as we look back and reflect on them
Still watching those old memories fade and die
But as time goes on, the memories seem to fade and fade until they are gone
This door is heavy, and is deeply stained,
The door to understanding is both challenging and tainted by prior experiences
With wasted tears, that try to fight in vain,
Past efforts and emotions that have been spent trying to unlock the door seem to be in vain
You may be sitting, feeling quite secure,
Although one may be sitting in peace and security, the search and struggle for answers are ongoing
But listen carefully, and this key is yours
But if one listens carefully, the answer is there, waiting to be unlocked
For we can lead you far beyond that door
The answer can take one beyond the door and into a new world of understanding and experience
There are dangers hidden, trust in that language
But one must be aware that unexpected dangers may be lurking and trust in the language of experience
And it is precisely this conception that which must not be changed
It is this understanding and interpretation that must remain true and unaltered
The epitome of our language is patterns containment of thought and sound
The essence of our understanding lies in the patterns of our thoughts and sounds
Shouting nonsense words I die to fight!!
But even with all efforts, some thoughts and beliefs might be nonsense and unreasonable
Shouting nonsense words
Our search may result in frustration and utterances of unintelligible words
Upon this key, time will slide,
But even with all this, time continues to pass,
Beyond each lock, you lose your mind.
And as one unlocks the door, the mind continues to slip and slide
And as our door becomes open,
But still, with each unlocking, a new world of experiences lies waiting
A rush of sound is found inside
A rush of emotions and experiences fills the mind
Creating dreams that pass you by..
But even with this constant search, the dreams seem to pass by just as quickly
Bent cold sidewalk, open the gate,
In conclusion, as I speak to these trees, people, and cities, I am reminded of the bent cold sidewalk and the need to move on towards this unlocked gate
I may be late but I can no longer wait.
Although I may already be late, I can no longer wait and must continue my search for answers
Stealing the crown that stood me up,
As I move forward, I take control of my own destiny and start stealing the power from others who once stood above me
I'm laying the table with dusty plates.
And as I take control, I create a new world of possibilities with old, dusty plates laying on the table waiting to be explored
Playing the god to fix your gaze,
I am now in charge and play the role of the godlike figure, who hopes to guide and fix the gaze of others who are lost in the search for answers
I'm holding you firm on another day.
But with each step forward, my grip gets firmer, and a new day dawns
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Written by: FRANKE, FROESE, JOLLIFFE
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind