Alphabet Of Nations

From This Might Be A Wiki
YouTube
Music video for "Alphabet Of Nations"
Screenshot
Screenshot

song name Alphabet of Nations
artist They Might Be Giants
releases Here Come The ABCs, TMBG Clock Radio, CD/DVD Sampler
year 2005
first played August 17, 2004 (366 known performances)
run time 1:26
sung by John Flansburgh, John Linnell


Trivia/Info

  • Live performances and the 2012 deluxe edition of No! feature an extended version of the song with a bridge where Linnell lists more countries in this order: "Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Canada / Australia, Belgium, Chad / Afghanistan, Brunei, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Fiji, Guatemala".
  • Oman, Qatar, and Yemen are the only existing countries whose names begin with their respective first letters[1].
  • Technically, there is no nation whose name begins with the letter X (Mexico and Luxembourg are the only existing countries that have the letter X in them) or W (Wales is a part of the United Kingdom, Wallachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania, Wallis is a territory of France, and Western Sahara is a disputed territory south of Morocco). The fictional "West Xylophone" is used as a stand-in for both of these letters. Some fans have created a homepage for West Xylophone[2]. The band has joked that West Xylophone is the colonial name of what is now the "Republic of Marimba"[3].
  • At live shows, Dan Miller plays keyboard, and sings backup on "Zimbabwe".
  • The video was created by Brandon Martinez and Michelle Hammond of Colourmovie.

Song Themes

Geography, Letters Of The Alphabet

Videos

Current Rating

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Alphabet Of Nations is currently ranked #200 out of 1022. (82 wikians have given it an average rating of 8.71)