"Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" is a 1953 novelty song, with lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy and music by Nat Simon. It was written on the 500th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. The lyrics humorously refer to the official renaming of the city of Constantinople to Istanbul. The song's original release, performed by The Four Lads, was certified as a gold record. Numerous cover versions have been recorded over the years, most famously a 1990 version by They Might Be Giants.
Jazz historian Will Friedwald mentioned that the song is an answer to "C-O-N-S-T-A-N-T-I-N-O-P-L-E", written by Harry Carlton and recorded in 1928 by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. [1] [2]
"Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" was originally recorded by the Canadian vocal quartet The Four Lads on August 12, 1953. This recording was released by Columbia Records as catalog number 40082. It first reached the Billboard magazine charts on October 24, 1953, and it peaked at #10. It was the group's first gold record. [3] [4]
Frankie Vaughan's 1954 version for HMV reached the UK charts that year with a peak position of No. 11. [5]
Col Joye's backing band recorded an instrumental version on the Festival Records label, which peaked No. 16 in November 1960 according to the back-then Australian charts, ending up as No. 95 for the 1961 year-end ranking. [6]
Bing Crosby began performing a version on his weekly radio show, The Bing Crosby Show for General Electric . It was first broadcast as a duet with Ella Fitzgerald at the end of 1953, and later with Connie Russell in early 1954. It featured John Scott Trotter's Orchestra and trumpet soloist Ziggy Elman. [7]
Big Muffin Serious Band, a ukulele-based music performance group from New Zealand, released a cover on their LP "Jabberwocky Goes To Town" in 1987. [8]
| "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by They Might Be Giants | ||||
| from the album Flood | ||||
| B-side | "James K. Polk" | |||
| Released | May 14, 1990 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 2:34 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Composer(s) | Nat Simon | |||
| Lyricist(s) | Jimmy Kennedy | |||
| Producer(s) | ||||
| They Might Be Giants singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Music video | ||||
| Istanbul (Not Constantinople) on YouTube | ||||
One of the best-known versions of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" is the cover by the alternative rock band They Might Be Giants (TMBG), who released it on their album Flood in 1990. It was released as the second single from that album in the same year. TMBG's version is at a faster tempo than the original. The music video was featured in the first season of MTV's Liquid Television . TMBG's version of the song is prominently featured in the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Tiny Toon Music Television", as the soundtrack to a segment featuring Plucky Duck as a private detective hired to find a missing statue. It was also used as the theme in the 1992 thriller Black Magic starring Judge Reinhold. It later appeared in the first season of the Netflix series The Umbrella Academy , as well as an ending to an episode of The Simpsons , "Mobile Homer". The single reached number 61 on the UK Singles Chart in 1990. [9] TMBG later recorded an electronic version of the song for their 2011 compilation album, Album Raises New and Troubling Questions .
A Spanish language version called "Estambul" was recorded by Argentine synth-pop trio The Sacados in 1990. The song was included on their debut album "Te pido + respeto" (1990).
An orchestra version was recorded for the 2003 film Mona Lisa Smile , starring Julia Roberts. It used as background music.
Electro swing duo Bart & Baker covered the song for their album "The Jet Lag EP" (2012). [10] Another version called "Istanbul 2016" was included on their curation album "Best Of Electro Swing By Bart & Baker" (2016). [11]
Bette Midler performed the song as part of her 1976 special for Home Box Office, "Live at Last." It appears on the album of the same name. [12]
PJ Harvey used a loop of the song as inspiration for the title track of her album Let England Shake. Her release Let England Shake – Demos revealed that The Four Lads original recording was used as a constant sound bed under Let England Shake with PJ Harvey singing lyrics from the song at the end of demo. [13] [14]
In Season 2, Episode 4 (U.S. release October 12, 1997) of the television series Muppets Tonight , portions of the song were performed by a quartet of rats in kaftans and fezzes. [15]
The Doox of Yale, an a cappella group at Yale University, perform the song at the end of most of their concerts. The song has been in the repertoire of the group since 1953 (when they were known as "The Duke's Men").
During the 2000s, the song was performed live by Australian Klezmer/Gypsy Jazz band Monsieur Camembert, appearing on the album Live on Stage.
They Might Be Giants, often abbreviated as TMBG, is an American alternative rock and children’s band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a musical duo, often accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG expanded to include a backing band. The duo's current backing band consists of Marty Beller, Dan Miller and Danny Weinkauf. They have been credited as vital in the creation and growth of the prolific DIY music scene in Brooklyn in the mid-1980s.
Flood is the third studio album by Brooklyn-based alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants, released in January 1990. Flood was the duo's first album on the major label Elektra Records. It generated three singles: "Birdhouse in Your Soul", "Istanbul ", and the domestic promotional track "Twisting". The album is generally considered to be the band's definitive release, as it is their best-selling and most recognizable album, and is regarded by some as one of the best albums of the 1990s. Despite minimal stylistic and instrumental differences from previous releases, Flood is distinguished by contributions from seasoned producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley. John Linnell and John Flansburgh also took advantage of new equipment and recording techniques, including unconventional, home-recorded samples, which were programmed through Casio FZ-1 synthesizers. The album was recorded in New York City at Skyline Studios, which was better equipped than studios the band had worked in previously.
Polly Jean Harvey is an English singer-songwriter. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments.
They Might Be Giants, sometimes called The Pink Album, is the debut studio album from Brooklyn-based band They Might Be Giants. It was released by Bar/None in 1986. The album generated two singles, "Don't Let's Start" and "(She Was A) Hotel Detective". It is included on Then: The Earlier Years, a compilation of the band's early material, in its entirety, with the exception of "Don't Let's Start", which is replaced with the single mix for the compilation.
The Four Lads were a Canadian male singing quartet that earned many gold singles and albums in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Their million-selling signature tunes include "Moments to Remember"; "Standing on the Corner"; "No, Not Much"; "Who Needs You?" and "Istanbul".
Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants is a 2002 compilation album by American alternative rock band They Might Be Giants, issued by Rhino Records and compiled by the band's co-singer/songwriter and guitarist John Flansburgh. Despite its name, the compilation does not include tracks from the band's "Dial-A-Song" service. It is instead an anthology of various single, album and live tracks from the band's history, spanning their full career up to the time of its release. It includes tracks from every album starting with 1986's They Might Be Giants up through No!, their first children's album, which was released only three months before this compilation.
Martha and the Muffins are a Canadian rock band, active from 1977 to the present. Although they only had one major international hit single "Echo Beach" under their original band name, they had a number of hits in their native Canada, and the core members of the band also charted in Canada and internationally as M + M.
4-Track Demos is an album of demos by the English singer-songwriter PJ Harvey. It was released in October 1993 by Island Records. It consists of eight demos of songs from her previous album, Rid of Me, along with six demos of some unreleased tracks which never made it to release with the three-piece PJ Harvey line-up. According to interviews with Harvey, all fourteen of these songs were written and demoed at her home between mid-1991 and autumn 1992. 4-Track Demos was Harvey's first entirely self-produced album; there would not be another such until 2004's Uh Huh Her.
"Boss of Me" is a song by alternative rock band They Might Be Giants. The song is famously used as the opening theme song for the television show Malcolm in the Middle, and was released as the single from the soundtrack to the show. In 2002, "Boss of Me" won the band their first Grammy Award, in the category of Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. The song was one of the band's most commercially successful singles and is one of their best-known songs. The song was originally written with the chorus "Who's gonna guess the dead guy in the envelope" for a contest presented by the Preston and Steve show during their Y-100 days.
"Delta Dawn" is a song written by musician Larry Collins and country songwriter Alex Harvey. The first notable recording of the song was in 1971 by American singer and actress Bette Midler for her debut album The Divine Miss M. However it is best known as a 1972 top ten country hit for Tanya Tucker and a 1973 US number one hit for Helen Reddy.
"Pledging My Love" is a blues ballad. It was written by Ferdinand Washington and Don Robey and published in 1954.
"Wind Beneath My Wings" is a song written in 1982 by Americans Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley.
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" is a World War II jump blues song written by Don Raye and Hughie Prince which was introduced by The Andrews Sisters in the Abbott and Costello comedy film, Buck Privates (1941). The Andrews Sisters' Decca recording reached number six on the U.S. pop singles chart in the spring of 1941 when the film was in release. The song is ranked No. 6 on Songs of the Century. Bette Midler's 1972 recording of the song also reached the top ten on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
Jesse Albert Stone was an American rhythm and blues musician and songwriter whose influence spanned a wide range of genres. He also used the pseudonyms Charles Calhoun and Chuck Calhoun. His best-known composition as Calhoun was "Shake, Rattle and Roll".
Live at Last is the first live album by American singer Bette Midler, a two-disc set released in 1977, Midler's fourth album release on the Atlantic Records label. The album spawned from her live, recorded performance, "The Depression Tour" in Cleveland, entitled "The Bette Midler Show". The album was released on CD for the first time in 1993. A limited edition remastered version of the album was released by Friday Music in 2012.
The following is a discography of They Might Be Giants (TMBG), an American alternative rock band comprising several artists including John Flansburgh, John Linnell, Marty Beller, Dan Miller, and Danny Weinkauf. The band's first release was the November 4, 1986 eponymously titled They Might Be Giants, but TMBG did not gain commercial success until their March 1990 single "Birdhouse in Your Soul" from the album Flood. "Birdhouse in Your Soul" reached #3 on the United States Modern Rock Tracks chart and #6 on the UK Singles Chart and remains their highest-charting single in both countries. Over the next two decades, They Might Be Giants released studio albums on a near-biennial fashion and currently have a total of 23 studio albums along with 11 live albums, 12 compilation albums, 15 extended plays and 30 singles.
The discography of PJ Harvey, an English alternative rock musician, consists of ten studio albums, two collaboration albums with John Parish, twenty-two singles, one extended play, three compilation albums and a number of collaborations with other artists.
"Night and Day" is a 1991 song by Bette Midler written by Roxanne Seeman and Billie Hughes. It is the second single from Some People's Lives produced by Arif Mardin with Marc Shaiman as associate producer. "Night and Day" was arranged by Arif Mardin, Billie Hughes, and Joe Mardin. Jack Joseph Puig was the recording and mix engineer. "Night and Day" was also released as a single in Japan.
"Sheela-Na-Gig" is a song by English alternative rock singer-songwriter PJ Harvey, written solely by Harvey. The song was released as the second single from her debut studio album, Dry, in February 1992. The single was the second, and final, single from Dry and only single from the album to enter the charts in both the United Kingdom and United States. It peaked at number 9 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, becoming one of Harvey’s highest charting songs in the U.S. An accompanying music video, directed by Maria Mochnacz, was released alongside the single.
Let England Shake is the eighth studio album by the English singer-songwriter and musician PJ Harvey, released on 14 February 2011 by Island Records. Production began around the time of White Chalk's release in 2007, though it is a departure from the piano-driven introspection of that album. Let England Shake was written over a 2+1⁄2-year period, and recorded in five weeks at a church in Dorset during April and May 2010.
