Easter Woman
"Easter Woman" is a song by The Residents, the first song on their Commercial Album, released by Ralph Records on October 29th 1980. Like all tracks on the album, it is exactly one minute long. It is often performed on the group's retrospective live shows.
An animated music video for the song by artist Stéphane Ricard is featured on the Commercial DVD, released in October 2004.
History
"Easter Woman" was previewed (alongside "End of Home" and "Amber") on the Ralph Records promotional sampler EP Buy or Die 1980½ on October 1980, prior to its appearance on the Commercial Album. An instrumental mix was featured on the soundtrack to the 1984 film The Census Taker.
The song has often featured in the group's retrospective live shows; it was first performed live in a suite of Commercial Album songs on the 13th Anniversary Show tour (1985-1987), featuring Snakefinger. This suite was performed again in 2005 on the Way We Were mini-tour of Australia.
An extended arrangement was performed on the Shadowland tour (2014-2016).
Three versions of "Easter Woman" were submitted by fans for use in the official tribute/collaborative album project I AM A RESIDENT! in 2018; two of these versions (by Snakes of Christ and Substance W) are featured in the suite "Commercial Bells Toll" on the CD version of the album.
Music video
An animated video for "Easter Woman" was created in 2004 by French video artist Stéphane Ricard (who also created short films for "End of Home" and "Fingertips"), and featured on the Commercial DVD, released through Mute and The Cryptic Corporation in October 2004.
In the summer of 2021, Homer Flynn and John Sanborn collaborated on a handful of homemade TikTok shorts incorporating the Commercial DVD videos through the use of an iPhone. The group's TikTok account has since been deleted, but the shorts have been archived on YouTube.
Lyrics
Down, feeling down I'm down, down, down Down, feeling down I'm down, down, down
Easter woman came today And took away my wife Took her through an open doorway To the afterlife[1]
List of releases
- Buy or Die 1980½ sampler (1980) [Version 1]
- Commercial Album (1980) [Version 1]
- The Census Taker (1985) [Version 2]
- Heaven? (1986) [Version 1]
- The Eyeball Show (Live in Japan) (1986) [Version 3]
- Live in the USA! 13th Anniversary Tour (1986) [Version 4]
- 13th Anniversary Show - Live in Holland (1987) [Version 5]
- Our Tired, Our Poor, Our Huddled Masses (1997) [Version 1]
- Commercial DVD (2004) [Version 6]
- The Way We Were (2005) [Version 7]
- Triple Dub-Ya: The Way We Were Melbourne (2012) [Version 8]
- 80 Aching Orphans (2017) [Version 4]
- Commercial Album pREServed (2019) [Version 1] [Version 4] [Version 7] [Version 9]
- Commercial Book bonus disc (2024) [Version 10]
- Shadowland: Live in Fribourg (2024) [Version 11]
List of versions
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Grove Street studio recording, September 1979 - July 1980 (1:00)
- ↑ Grove Street studio recording, September 1979 - July 1980; instrumental mix jointed with "Simple Song" (2:00)
- ↑ The Eyeball Show live recording, Parco Space, Tokyo, Japan, October 30th 1985 (1:30)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 The 13th Anniversary Show live recording, First Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota, February 10th 1986 (1:30)
- ↑ The 13th Anniversary Show live recording, Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands, October 25th 1986; introductory guitar solo (0:42)
- ↑ Short film by Stéphane Ricard
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 The Way We Were live recording, What is Music? Festival, Australia, March 2005 ("Commercial Album Suite", 5:42)
- ↑ The Way We Were live recording, What is Music? Festival, Melbourne, Australia, March 2005
- ↑ Shadowland live recording; Paris, 2015 (2:34)
- ↑ Radio ad, 1980
- ↑ Shadowland live recording; Fribourg, Switzerland, January 2016
External links and references
- Commercial Album at The Residents Historical
- Commercial Album at RZWeb (archived via archive.org)
- Commercial Album on Discogs
