Golden Earring - Twilight Zone (Live, acoustic, September 9, 1992)

[highplainsdem]

For Mousetoescamper, who used to play this song in cover bands.

[Mousetoescamper]

1. This sounds splendid 'unplugged'!!!

Our renditions were a wee bit more, eh, bombastic.

ProfessorGAC's band played Radar Love, which horn parts he seems to have covered using synths.

The radio's playin' some forgotten song
Brenda Lee's "Comin' On Strong"

Just for fun

?feature=shared

Thanks!

[highplainsdem]

3. Love the Brenda Lee video! Barry Hay, who wrote the lyrics for Radar Love, said Brenda Lee was

his mom's favorite singer (she was a favorite of my.mom, too). Mini-documentary they did for a Dutch TV show (English subtitles) several years ago (I posted it here a couple of years ago, but it belongs in this thread, too):

This sounds splendid 'unplugged'!!!

Their decision to do an unplugged concert and record it did wonders for the band's career, nearly 30 years after they started. They did a lot of acoustic shows after that, but had to alternate with electric because playing acoustic versions was so much harder on their hands. Usually they'd do acoustic shows weeknights in theaters, back to electric (maybe with a few acoustic songs for an intro) in large venues on weekends.

Our renditions were a wee bit more, eh, bombastic

So were theirs, when they weren't acoustic.

Here's one of my favorite videos of a live performance of Twilight Zone, from a June 1982 concert they filmed for German TV's Rockpalast. This was two months before they recorded the song, before they changed the working title...but since the concert wasn't broadcast till a couple of months after that, Rockpalast had the correct title on the screen:

This nearly wasn't a Golden Earring song. George Kooymans had written it by himself, as he'd written most of the band's songs and all their hits before he and Barry started cowriting songs in the early '70s, with Barry - whose first language was English - writing the lyrics. The band was close to breaking up in the early '80s and George was planning to do a solo album, but they decided to do one more album as Golden Earring and George included this song, and it was their second worldwide hit. Six months on the US charts.

[Mousetoescamper]

5. Brenda Lee's still kickin' and released a new video for Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree

last December to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the song's release. The video uses the original hit recording with 79-year-old Lee lip-synching.

I'll view the Radar Love mini-doc later.

The early live version of what became Twilight Zone is new to me. I love the extended soloing and energy!

[Figarosmom]

7. I have a little plush

Xmas tree that when you squeeze it's foot it dances to Brenda Lee singing Rockin around the Xmas tree. First thing I unpack and put a battery in every Xmas. I loved Brenda Lee. Loved "I'm Sorry" love to sing along with her..

[highplainsdem]

12. Sounds cute!

[highplainsdem]

13. Just watched that Brenda Lee video, which is a lot of fun. I'll post it below.

Hope you enjoyed the Radar Love mini-doc...and I should have explained it's only 6-1/2 minutes (mini-documentary is the term Top 2000 a go go uses for these videos, but it suggests something much longer than several minutes).

The early live version of what became Twilight Zone is new to me. I love the extended soloing and energy!

I was blown away when I discovered that really late one night. This is the thread I posted then:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103467479

See reply 2 there for my reaction. And reply 3 there has the full concert video, just over an hour and a half. Think I'll post that below, too.

That night was also when I discovered Rockpalast videos on YouTube, and in the next several months I posted OPs with Rockpalast videos - often complete concerts - featuring the Pretenders, Thin Lizzy, Rory Gallagher, Dire Straits, U2, ZZ Top, the Ian Hunter Band with Mick Ronson, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Wishbone Ash.

Here's that Brenda Lee video from last year:

Golden.Earring's 1982 Rockpalast concert:

[Figarosmom]

2. I do love

This song. Was just wondering the other day why I've never heard it used in a movie since it would be a good one for background or to build suspense. I like this unplugged version very much.

[highplainsdem]

4. It's my favorite Golden Earring song. Much as I love Radar Love, I'd give this the edge. It has been used

in some films and TV shows, but not as much as it should've been.

From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_Zone_(Golden_Earring_song)

In popular culture

The song has been featured in several films and series including End of Watch (2012), The Americans (2013), Ozark (TV series) (2022), and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024).

[Figarosmom]

6. I watched all of the americans

First run and don't recall hearing it. I've been planning on rewatching it when available for free streaming. Radar love was good but yeah twilight zone just had an edge to it. Thanks for the info.

[highplainsdem]

8. Episode 213, according to an article in Variety:

https://variety.com/2018/music/news/the-americans-music-supervision-songs-1202730700/

“Twilight Zone” Golden Earring (Ep. 213)

This was one of those series moments where it took an especially long time to crack the soundtrack code. We literally worked with dozens of songs before coming up with “Twilight Zone.” But once we did, it felt like it was written for the episode if not the entire season. It worked amazingly well as a foreshadowing lyrical device. And the guitar melody is reminiscent of John Barry’s James Bond theme so its pace added the perfect amount of propulsion to the sequence without pushing too hard. And it didn’t hurt that the “Twilight Zone” music video tells the story of a secret agent on the run from enemy spies.

Description of that episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_(The_Americans)

[Figarosmom]

10. Thanks

I'll check it out

[highplainsdem]

14. I'd love to hear how well you think it works there. It was interesting to read in Variety that

the show's music supervisors thought Twilight Zone was reminiscent of the James Bond theme. I'd never associated the two myself, though I love both, and I'd never noticed anyone else associating. I did a search this morning and found it mentioned in Reddit discussions of what songs would've been good themes for Bond films, but no one compared it directly to the Bond theme.

[Figarosmom]

16. I think its more suspense

Last edited Fri Aug 30, 2024, 02:48 PM - Edit history (2)

Building then bond. One ( twilight) has you sitting at the edge of your chair sitting straight uo , the bond theme song while good doesn't provide suspense, just good background music. It plays as Rhyes has to retrieve the shoes from the dumpster completing the assignment of getting psint samples of the psint used on stealth jets. The guy who was to carry out the assignment was kiled in the process and managed to put the shoes in dumpster and call rhyes to get them before dyijng. Also highlights their despair that everything is starting to fall apart.

On edit: serendipity I turn on the radio to start some basic cleaning. And of course the first few unmistakable notes of ....the Twighlight Zone, of course. This is my life sometimes I have to wonder why I think about something or someone and suddenly within a few days there they are.

[highplainsdem]

9. Still haven't found a YouTube clip of that scene using Twilight Zone, but according to this

AfterBuzzTV review at about 4:20 it was the episode's opening sequence.

[ProfessorGAC]

11. Enjoyed That

George plays some nifty stuff in that solo.

[highplainsdem]

15. Glad you enjoyed it! I loved it myself, but I'm not a professional musician (or even much of an amateur

musician), so I enjoy comments from you and other musicians here. (And from the music fans here, too, of course.)

George would probably still be playing that well, or nearly that well, if not for ALS...

Did you see the live performance of the song from Countdown in late 1982 that I posted yesterday, with video I'd never posted here before?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1034125989