The Fiery Furnaces signed with the Rough Trade Records music label in 2002, and recorded their debut album in the same year.
Gallowsbird's Bark, released in the autumn of 2003, garnered critical praise for its clever wordplay and original songwriting.
Anybody who thought they had the band pinned at that point was quickly proven wrong with the 2004 release Blueberry Boat, a rock-operatic album whose track lengths were often six minutes long or longer.
While some critics adored the album for its vast complexity, others found it all a little too overwhelming.
After releasing EP in 2005 (considered a full-length album because of its 41 minute play time, but is "officially" an EP) the band then released two further albums - Rehearsing My Choir (2005), a radio-dramaesque concept album about the Friedbergers' Greek grandmother; and Bitter Tea (2006), which is a comparably more conventional album built on still-bent song structures, but with more pop-oriented stylings.
In October 2007 the band released their fifth full-length album, Widow City.
Trivia
- Their name is both a reference to the film "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)" and to the book of Daniel in the Bible.
- Matthew Friedberger has also released two solo albums simultaneously.
- Eleanor Friedberger is rumoured to be in a relationship with Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, because the song "Eleanor Put Your Boots On" from their second album is about her.
- Due to the garage blues elements of the band’s sound and the fact that the band members are siblings, The Fiery Furnaces was often compared by the press to The White Stripes (The White Stripes sometimes promote themselves as siblings, though they are not).
Official Website: www.thefieryfurnaces.com
Wolf Notes
The Fiery Furnaces Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
your plastic pretend trumpet:
blow me your horn today
Pick up your tambourine,
your Fisher Price My First Tamborine:
jingle and jangle today.
Plug in your keyboard,
your symphonic sound samba Samsung:
Turn off your radio
shut away your stereo
put away your discman
and play me a tune today:
I rub the peg-paste and the chalk in.
scrape and the wolf-notes start to grrr.
I did a donkey's back with fixed frog
and I martellato the slur.
Through an open wound you watch the guts go,
cut cross the cat line, thick and thin.
All overspun and resigned-up a slow stick trills me, trills me:
She varnished all around her F-holes;
blue tape take aim, but the arms are too low.
Legato look and sawing detache:
but you want to bust your bow.
Bow down and wipe off, snap the case closed.
Madame Professor says Well done.
But an electric stroboscopic frequency meter'd say otherwise.
I scratch harmonicas in half-position;
I pinch my e-string rat-a-tat;
I double stop on any open string;
screw my G on up to be -flat.
The lyrics to The Fiery Furnaces's song "Wolfnotes" appear to be a reflection on music and the act of creating it. The first stanza seems to be expressing a desire for the listener to pick up their instruments and play, regardless of their quality or authenticity. The repetition of "today" suggests a sense of urgency or immediacy, and the use of childlike instruments (such as a plastic trumpet and Fisher Price tambourine) further emphasizes the notion of playful experimentation.
The second stanza delves deeper into the act of playing and creating music. The lines "I rub the peg-paste and the chalk in / scrape and the wolf-notes start to grrr" describe the physical process of preparing an instrument to play, and the use of "wolf-notes" suggests a certain dissonance or imperfection that adds character to the music. The following lines describe different techniques and styles of playing, such as martellato and legato, and culminate in a description of Madame Professor's approval. However, the final line undermines this validation with the mention of an electric stroboscopic frequency meter, which suggests the ultimate arbiter of musical quality might not be human judgement but technological measurement.
Line by Line Meaning
Pick up your trumpet,
your plastic pretend trumpet:
blow me your horn today
Grab your toy trumpet and play a tune for me today.
Pick up your tambourine,
your Fisher Price My First Tamborine:
jingle and jangle today.
Get your child's toy tambourine and make some noise for me today.
Plug in your keyboard,
your symphonic sound samba Samsung:
pick out a tune today.
Connect your modern keyboard and play some music for me today.
Turn off your radio
shut away your stereo
put away your discman
and play me a tune today
Stop listening to recorded music and instead play live music for me today.
I rub the peg-paste and the chalk in.
scrape and the wolf-notes start to grrr.
I did a donkey's back with fixed frog
and I martellato the slur.
I apply rosin and chalk to my bow, producing a rough sound. I play techniques such as fixed frog and martellato.
Through an open wound you watch the guts go,
cut cross the cat line, thick and thin.
Through a cut on the body of a violin, you can see the strings vibrate at different thicknesses.
All overspun and resigned-up a slow stick trills me, trills me:
She varnished all around her F-holes;
blue tape take aim, but the arms are too low.
Legato look and sawing detache:
The bow moves slowly up and down, playing notes with vibrato. The violin has been varnished around the F-holes, but tape has been added to the bow arms to fix their position. The bow technique alternates between legato and sawing detache.
but you want to bust your bow.
Bow down and wipe off, snap the case closed.
Madame Professor says Well done.
But an electric stroboscopic frequency meter'd say otherwise.
You want to play your bow so hard that it might break. You clean off your bow, put it back in its case, and receive praise from a teacher. However, an electronic device could reveal imperfections in your playing.
I scratch harmonicas in half-position;
I pinch my e-string rat-a-tat;
I double stop on any open string;
screw my G on up to be-flat.
I play the harmonica in half-position, producing a scratchy sound. I play the e-string in a staccato manner. I double stop (play two strings at once) on any open string. I adjust the G string to be played as G-flat.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Downtown Music Publishing
Written by: MATTHEW FRIEDBERGER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind