"Hail Santa" Christmas poster from Phase One
Don Quixote's Christmas Bonanza is a Gorillaz song commissioned for the compilation album "Swallow My Eggnog" from radio show hosts and musicians Kevin Ryder and Gene "Bean" Baxter by the KROQ-FM radio from Phase 1. The song consists of cranks, ominous whistles and sparse vocals by 2-D, with its only lyrics being him singing "Happy Radio" in falsetto.
The compilation the full-length version was featured on
On this compilation, a slightly shorter version of the song was included instead, while the full song was only featured on another compilation from the same year titled "AIR Futures (Modern Rock December 2001)" by US radio programming competition and label AIR (Active Industry Research).
Due to being even rarer and more obscure, this version had never surfaced online prior to February 21, 2019, when the full HQ version of it was found and extracted by user Gisanh and uploaded onto YouTube by user blueheaven. This version included a brief noise made by Damon Albarn at the beginning of the song, which was never included in the low-quality ones floating around prior, due to its position on the song changing from both versions.
Recording[]
The song, when commissioned, was meant to be rushed out for Christmas that year, which gave Damon and his crew little time compared to their other songs to work on it. As a result, it ended up sounding mostly incomplete and having only one repeating lyric. It was recorded during their break between the European and North American tours of Gorillaz's debut album, Gorillaz, around the same time " 911" was also being recorded. Damon delivered piano lines, synthesisers and an echo-soaked guitar alongside his vocals, Junior Dan delivered a smooth dub bass line for the song and Cass Browne played sleigh bells and various lo-fi sounding percussion.[1]
Lyrics[]
Happy Radio!
Happy Radio!
Happy Radio!
Happy Radio-o-o-o-o!
Happy Radio!
Happy Radio!
Happy Radio!
Happy Radio-o-o-o-o!
Happy Radio!
Happy Radio!
Happy Radio!
Happy Radio-o-o-o-o!
Happy Radio!
Happy Radio!
Happy Radio!
Happy Radio-o-o-o-o!
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- The full version of the song has a length of 4:08, while the shorter version, featured on "Swallow My Eggnog", has a length of 3:44.
- The reason for the song's only lyric being "Happy Radio" is most likely due to the full name of the radio station which comissioned it, which was "Happy Christmas KROQ Radio", making it easy both to come up with and to associate one with the other.
- This song has never been publically discussed or mentioned by neither Damon Albarn or Jamie Hewlett.
- Also on "Swallow My Eggnog", there is a track titled "Clint Frostwood" by "Chillaz". The track is a Christmas parody of the Gorillaz single "Clint Eastwood", detailing the story of a character named "Frosty the Snowman". Interestingly, the parody uses the same instrumental as Clint Eastwood, but without any chord progression, and is also much shorter, with a length of 2:41.
References[]
- ↑ Gorillaz Song By Song "Don Quixote's Christmas Bonanza". Blogspot.com. GorillazSongBySong. Retrieved 12 November 2021.