How Disney inspired Mercury Rev: “That was literally downloaded into your bloodstream”
Given that they have an extensive oeuvre and have always had an experimental edge, it makes sense that the Buffalo alternative rock dynasty Mercury Rev delved into several areas off the beaten path in their time.
The most famous example of this is that the band’s frontman, Jonathan Donahue, was openly influenced by some of his favourite children’s records, including Tale Spinners for Children, when in the depths of depression, writing their most successful album, 1999’s Deserter’s Songs. However, it also transpires that in their earlier, noise-oriented days, the group were inspired by a classic Disney movie song.
Donahue revealed this when speaking to The Line of Best Fit alongside the other Mercury Rev constant, Grasshopper, in 2017. Listing nine tracks that impacted his musical style, the most fascinating pick was ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ by Cliff Edwards, which he sang as the character of Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney’s 1940 classic Pinocchio.
The vocalist explained how the “otherwordly” song and its layering inspired their attempts to do so on their raw 1991 debut, Yerself Is Steam. Donahue said: “Growing up in America in the late ’60s and early ’70s, every Sunday evening there was The Walt Disney Hour on TV, and before they played whatever Walt Disney movie or animation that was on, they would always begin with ‘When You Wish Upon a Star.’ This was probably the first embedding of music into your DNA outside of something that your parents might listen to on the radio; this was something that was wholly your own because this was children’s music”.
He continued: “Your parents would plop you down in front of the television set on a Sunday night, and this was your hour of music basically, so for myself, Grasshopper, and a number of other people, this otherworldly song was really the first music that informed you. Whatever music was to come in your life, this was the first information that was literally downloaded into your bloodstream”.
The frontman further explained: “Early on in Mercury Rev, we were using feedback, and Grasshopper was using guitar elements because we’d yet to learn how to score orchestrally ourselves; we were just too young. Yerself is Steam was our early attempt at orchestrating, but we were using feedback and noise and, basically, any note we could grab on the fretboard or the piano because we weren’t really accomplished rock musicians. Like everyone, when you begin, you sort of fumble around.”
“The idea of the layering and the dynamics that are in some of those very early Disney movies, such as Fantasia or Pinocchio was definitely in our consciousness,” he added. “It was definitely one of the few things we could lean on as teenagers”.
Listen to ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ by Cliff Edwards below.
