Tragic Bells
"Tragic Bells" is the eighteenth track on The Residents' Commercial Album, released by Ralph Records on October 29th 1980. Like all songs on the album, it is exactly one minute long.
A cover of the song by The Residents' long-time collaborator Nolan Cook (under the pseudonym Nifnar)[1] is featured on the vinyl edition of I AM A RESIDENT!.
Music video
A music video for the song was produced by Chip Lord – of avant-garde art collective Ant Farm – for the Commercial DVD in 2004. It features old 8mm film footage of a car modified by Ant Farm (presumably shot in the 1970s), mixed with digitally manipulated footage and photographs of Oakland, California shot in 2004. The lyrics of the song appear as overlaid text.
Lyrics
Tragic bells are ringing for me Tragic bells are ringing in my ears again And I don't know when they will end[Note 1]
List of releases
- Commercial Album (1980) [Version 1]
- Commercial DVD (2004) [Version 2]
- I AM A RESIDENT! (vinyl edition) (2018) [Version 3]
- Commercial Album pREServed CD edition (2019) [Version 1] [Version 4] (2023 LP only)
- Commercial Book bonus disc (2024) [Version 5]
List of versions
Notes
- ↑ Official sources differ on the last line of the lyrics, possibly because the song was not included in the Italian book An Almost Complete Collection of Lyrics, 1972-1988. RZWeb and The Residents Historical inaccurately present the line as "And I don't know why I'm going on", while the on-screen text in the 2004 Chip Lord music video offers the more correct interpretation, "And I don't know when it will end". The lyrics seen here are derived from the 2021 RDX mix of the song, in which the vocals are more clearly audible.
External links and references
- Commercial Album at The Residents Historical
- Commercial Album at RZWeb (archived via archive.org)
- Commercial Album on Discogs
