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.
Eleanor Rigby
Tangerine Dream Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Ah look at all the lonely people
Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice
In the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face
That she keeps in a jar by the door
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
Father McKenzie, writing the words
Of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks
In the night when there's nobody there
What does he care
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
Ah look at all the lonely people
Ah look at all the lonely people
Eleanor Rigby, died in the church
And was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt
From his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
The song "Eleanor Rigby" by Tangerine Dream is a beautiful and haunting reflection on loneliness and isolation. The song focuses on two characters, Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie, who are both separated from the world and struggling to find their place in it. Eleanor Rigby is depicted as a lonely woman who lives in a world of her own making. She picks up rice after a wedding ceremony, wearing a face she has kept in a jar at her door. The question remains, who is it for? Father McKenzie, on the other hand, is a minister who is writing sermons that no one will hear. He spends his lonely nights darning his socks without anyone there to share his life.
The song reaches its emotional climax with the death of Eleanor Rigby. She is buried in a church with no one present to mourn her passing. Father McKenzie, the minister who has spent his life ministering to the lonely and forgotten, walks away from her grave, having failed to save another life. The song concludes with the question: "All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong?" It highlights the fact that there are many lonely people in the world, and we need to find a way to connect with them and bring them into our communities.
Line by Line Meaning
Ah look at all the lonely people
Observing the vast number of individuals who live solitary lives.
Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice
In the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face
That she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for
Eleanor Rigby works hard in the church and lives a life of solitude. She dreams of marrying, but her loneliness is pervasive, and the mask she wears only adds to the facade.
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
The vast number of people who experience loneliness is a significant societal issue. The song asks where these people come from and where their place is in society.
Father McKenzie, writing the words
Of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks
In the night when there's nobody there
What does he care
Father McKenzie writes a lonely sermon that no one will hear. He, too, works tirelessly at night, and his loneliness cannot be hidden.
Eleanor Rigby, died in the church
And was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt
From his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved
Eleanor Rigby dies alone in the church and has a pitiful funeral with no mourners. Father McKenzie officiates, wiping dirt from his hands as he walks away, understanding that no one has been saved from loneliness.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: John Lennon, Paul McCartney
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Tyrone Epps
Tangerine dream 4- ever !
Robert Kiraly
Izgalmas, modern verzioja ez ennek a legmodernebbnek tartott Beatles dalnak!
Robert Kiraly
Köszönöm szépen!
sven neu
Nice cover from The Beatles 1966
Ken Murphy
Ahh look at ALL the lonely people ... where DO they all come from ???
Ken Murphy
~~ where DO they ALL belong ???
Philippe Cirse
ça s'étale en longueur ! Une vraie tarte dégoulinante à la crème indigeste cette reprise :( 3 600 personnes ont visionnées cette version sans laisser de commentaires ; comment s'en étonner !!!
Ken Murphy
Oui ... Vous et correctamon monsieur !!! ~~~