Macca’s gems: Tropical Island Hum

It is one of McCartney's happiest and funniest songs: Tropical Island Hum, a nursery rhyme from the eponymous animated short film produced by Sir Paul. The song has a long history: The first recordings start in 1987, are finally completed in 1995 and then it will last until 2004 before it was released as a single.

It is a special track in a number of ways. First of all the music style: a kind of vaudeville, dixieland jazz combined with an intermediate piece consisting of an exotic sounding drum part. But the most extraordinary are the vocal parts: The song is sung by several characters from the movie and those different voices are all done by McCartney himself and in case of the song, they all are also sung by him. The American jazz singer Marion Montgomery (1934-2002) is the only female cameo and she sings her part with a very sultry voice. The song has its premiere in 1997, when, in a number of countries, the animated film can be seen in the cinema, as a pre-movie before Disney’s feature film Hercules.

Video: Tropical Island Hum

The animated film Tropical Island Hum is a joint project by Paul and Linda McCartney and one of four they make in collaboration with animator Geoff Dunbar. The other three are Tuesday, Damier's Law and the well-known Rupert and the Frog Song, of which we all know the song We All Stand Together. The story is about Wirral the squirrel, who escapes from a group of hunters and flees to a tropical island. The animals that live there decide to organize a welcome party for him that ends up in a community singing. 

I don't often write songs for children but we made this new film for kids and the film needed a song. As a songwriter I'm always interested in trying to write music in different styles, so I took the challenge of trying to write another one for kids.

Paul McCartney 

The making of Tropical Island Hum

The film lasts about thirteen minutes, almost half of which consists of the nursery rhyme. Seven years after the theatrical release of the cartoon, a shortened radio-edit of the song appears on single in the United Kingdom, where it is in the charts for three weeks and reaches the 21st place. This late release is in honor of the 20th anniversary of the cartoon Rupert and the Frog Song; We All Stand Together is therefore the single’s B-side.
At the same time, the DVD 'The Music and Animation Collection' is released, which features Rupert and the Frog Song and Tropical Island Hum, as well as the animated movie Tuesday.

DVD-trailer:

Related posts:

Macca’s Gems: Souvenir
New: A Typical McCartney Stuck-In-Your-Head Tune
Eight Sex-Related Songs By McCartney

André Homan

André Homan is a Dutch writer and journalist.

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