In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (song)

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This article is about the song. For the album, see In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (album).

"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"

Single by Iron Butterfly
from the album In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Released	1968
Recorded	1968
Genre	Rock
Length	17:08 (album version) 2:53 (single edit) 18:51 (live version)
Label	Atco Records
Writer(s)	Doug Ingle
Producer(s)	Don Casale

"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", released in 1968, was a 17-minute rock song by Iron Butterfly, released on their album In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, occupying the entire second side of the album. The lyrics are simple, and heard only at the beginning and the end. One of the most memorable parts of the song is the guitar riff, which is also one of the most recognizable guitar riffs in rock music. In almost all of Doug Ingle's other songs, the guitar part was subordinate or equal to the keyboard part, however "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is a rare exception to this, as the song's chorus is centered around the guitar's distorted riff.

A commonly repeated story says that the song's title was originally "In the Garden of Eden" or "In the Garden of Venus" but in the course of rehearsing and recording singer Doug Ingle slurred the words into the nonsense phrase of the title while under the influence of LSD. However, the liner notes on 'the best of' CD compilation state that drummer Ron Bushy was listening to the track through headphones, and couldn't hear correctly; he simply distorted what Doug Ingle answered when Ron asked him for the title of the song (which was originally In-The-Garden-Of-Venus). An alternate version of the story, as stated in the liner notes of the 1995 re-release of the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album, states that Ingle was drunk when he first told Bushy the title, so Bushy wrote it down. Bushy then showed Ingle what he had written, and the slurred title stuck.

Another theory is that the misspelled words are actually Bhagavad Gita, which is the name of a sacred Hindu text.

The song features a memorable guitar and bass riff which functions as an ostinato repeated for almost the entire length of the song. It is also used as the basis for extended organ and guitar solos, which are interrupted in the middle by an extended drum solo, one of the first such solos on a rock record and one of the most famous in rock. What made this particular drum solo so unique was its surreal tribal sound. Bushy had his drums miked and fed into a rotating Leslie speaker to give them a phasing sound and also took the bottoms off his toms to give them a more heavy sound. It's then followed by Doug Ingle's ethereal polyphonic organ solo (which resembles variations on "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen") to the accompaniment of drums (beginning around 9 minutes and 10 seconds). There are then interludes in cut time and a reprise of the original theme and vocals.

A live version reaching over 18 minutes long was released as part of their 1970 live album. This version, however, has evidence of heavy editing from the actual live recording. The guitar solo, for example, seems to have been recorded in a studio or somewhere else where there was no audience in attendance. The live version also lengthens the drums solo by roughly 4 minutes and the organ solo by about 1 minute. The version also omits the bass and drum solo jam (heard from 13:04-15:19 on the studio recording). The version that was edited and released as a single omits the instrumental solos and leaves roughly three minutes of music.
When Doug Ingle originally wrote the song, he had not intended for it to run seventeen minutes long.^[1]

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"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" ostinato riff.

The song is significant in rock history because, together with Blue Cheer and Steppenwolf, it marks the point when psychedelic music produced heavy metal. Later 1970s heavy metal and progressive rock acts like Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin owe much of their sound, and even more of their live acts, to this recording. In 1987, thrash metal band Slayer, covered this song on the soundtrack of Less Than Zero. In 2006, German power metal band Blind Guardian, covered "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" on their "Fly" single, Slayer's cover is about 3:20 and Blind Guardian's cover is around 3:40. Also in 2006 Larry Rust, Iron Butterfly's keyboardist from 1999-2005, did an 8 1/2-minute version of this song and can be heard on his "myspace"; it is not clear if it will be released on any upcoming album.

[edit] References in popular culture

The song's familiar riff was borrowed by the group Chase for the end of their one-hit wonder "Get It On".

The song itself was notably featured on a Halloween episode of Home Improvement, played by Tim during a fake alien landing he staged to scare Randy and Brad.

It is also featured prominently in the climax of the film Manhunter; an edited 8:20 version is featured on the soundtrack album.

In the movie Killers (aka Real Killers) the song features very heavily, almost being the only score throughout the film, and was often split up; with various pieces of the song being used for dramatic effect.

The song was referenced in the episode of The Simpsons called "Bart Sells His Soul" when Bart tricked the entire congregation of a church into singing it by passing it off as a hymn called "In the Garden of Eden" by one "I. Ron Butterfly".

The song is also present in the sixth Leisure Suit Larry game, Love for Sail, in which the main character undergoes a severe hallucination after consuming a spiked drink. The song is also featured in the motion picture Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, when the stoner falls asleep and gets sucked into the TV.

In an episode of Bobby's World, a stone-age Uncle Ted sings the song in a thick caveman accent during one of Bobby's Mittyesque fantasies.

Hip-hop artist Nas has done two songs that have sampled this same song: first was "Thief's Theme", the bonus track from his 2004 album Street's Disciple and the second was the title track of his 2006 album Hip Hop Is Dead using the guitar riff and baseline in the single. (Both songs sampled the cover version performed by the Incredible Bongo Band).