"Elephant Talk" is a song by the band King Crimson and was released in 1981 on the Discipline album. The song is led primarily by Tony Levin's Chapman stick, playing a Go-go-style bass line. The band plays verses, choruses and several guitar solos, the latter of which are deliberately played and processed to resemble trumpeting elephants or squeaky mice.
Adrian Belew sings five stanzas of humorous lyrics, each one beginning and ending with the phrase "Talk! It's only talk!". The other lyrics consist of yelled synonyms for talking, with each stanza containing words of a different letter (Alliteration). The five stanzas progress alphabetically (the first stanza using "talk" synonyms beginning with "A", the second "B" and so on.) Belew's vocal delivery is reminiscent of that of David Byrne, with whom Belew performed in the band Talking Heads.
It was released as a single in 1981. Its tracks are from the album Discipline.
Read more about Elephant Talk: Personnel, Live Versions, Covers
Famous quotes containing the words elephant and/or talk:
“I asked my mother for fifty cents
To see the elephant jump the fence.
He jumped so high he reached the sky,
And didn’t get back till the Fourth of July.”
—Unknown. I Asked My Mother (l. 1–4)
“When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies,
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)