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.
One Hour of Madness
Tangerine Dream Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)
O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
O savage and tender achings!
(I bequeath them to you, my children,
O to be yielded to you, whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me, in
defiance of the world!
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
O to draw you to me—to plant on you for the first time the lips of a
determin'd man!
O the puzzle—the thrice-tied knot—the deep and dark pool! O all untied
and illumin'd!
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
O to be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions—I from mine, and you
from yours!
O to find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of nature!
O to have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!
O to have the feeling, to-day or any day, I am sufficient as I am!
O something unprov'd! something in a trance!
O madness amorous! O trembling!
O to escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
To court destruction with taunts—with invitations!
To ascend—to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
To rise thither with my inebriate Soul!
To be lost, if it must be so!
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!
With one brief hour of madness and joy.
The poem "One Hour of Madness and Joy" by Walt Whitman inspired the lyrics for Tangerine Dream's song of the same name. The lyrics describe the desire to break free from societal conventions and experience passion and freedom. The singer longs to dive deeper into a state of delirium than anyone has before and to experience the thrill of yielding to another person entirely, regardless of the world's judgment. The idea of a return to Paradise is suggested, and the imagery of a bashful femininity is used in the context of planting the lips of a determined man. There is a sense of untying knots and breaking through psychological barriers to find a calm state of nonchalance in the company of the natural world. The singer is searching for something unproven, a new state of being that feels like a trance and embraces madness in love.
The song is an instrumental piece with no lyrics but is often interpreted as conveying a similar emotional message to the poem. The music seems to capture the sense of wanting to break free and explore new realms of consciousness. The dreamlike quality of the music paired with the intense drumbeats and guitar riffs creates an atmosphere of ecstatic desire for something beyond the ordinary. The song's title suggests that this heightened state of being is sustainable only for a brief period of time, but the experience is worth the risk of courting destruction.
Line by Line Meaning
ONE hour to madness and joy!
Excitement and happiness can only last for an hour.
O furious! O confine me not!
Do not contain me or limit me, I am wild and passionate.
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What is this feeling that sets me free in the midst of chaos?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)
What is the meaning of my cries during thunderstorms and hurricanes?
O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
I want to experience the mystical madness more than anyone else.
O savage and tender achings!
I embrace both wild and gentle desires.
(I bequeath them to you, my children,
(I share these desires with you, my fellow humans.
I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)
I reveal them to you, for reasons that you, the newlyweds, will come to understand.
O to be yielded to you, whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me, in defiance of the world!
I want to surrender myself to anyone, regardless of societal norms, and for them to do the same to me.
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
I long to go back to a time of innocence and femininity.
O to draw you to me—to plant on you for the first time the lips of a determin'd man!
I want to pull you close to me and kiss you with conviction, despite any obstacles.
O the puzzle—the thrice-tied knot—the deep and dark pool! O all untied and illumin'd!
I contemplate difficult problems, but feel relief when they become untangled and clear.
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
I want to move quickly and freely in a place with ample room and air.
O to be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions—I from mine, and you
I want absolution from past commitments and expectations, both for myself and for you.
from yours! O to find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of nature!
To find a fresh and surprising calmness among the beauty of the natural world.
O to have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!
I desire to speak freely and without restraint.
O to have the feeling, to-day or any day, I am sufficient as I am!
To have the assurance that I am enough, no matter what day it is.
O something unprov'd! something in a trance!
Something untested! Something that puts me in a trance!
O madness amorous! O trembling!
I am crazy in love, and it makes me shake with excitement.
O to escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!
To break free completely from the limitations others impose upon me.
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
To drive, to love, and to dash with no restraint, taking risks and living dangerously.
To court destruction with taunts—with invitations!
To invite peril and destruction, daring them to come and trying to lure them in.
To ascend—to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
To rise up and reach for the highest level of love that I believe is possible.
To rise thither with my inebriate Soul!
To rise to that level of love with my intoxicated soul.
To be lost, if it must be so!
To be willing to get lost if that's what it takes to reach that level of love.
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!
To live the rest of my life fulfilled and free, thanks to that one hour of madness and joy.
With one brief hour of madness and joy.
All of this can happen in just one hour of wild bliss.
Contributed by Savannah H. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Kristina L.
An hour of madness that lasts eight minutes...😉
The Spirit of Hegel
Time is relative 😉