Song of the Day — September 11
The Flaming Lips — "Do You Realize??”
The Flaming Lips — “Do You Realize??”
11.September.2020
“Do You Realize??”
The Flaming Lips
2002
If only people could find a way to realize we all share one thing in common — and that is, we’re all going to die. So, we might as well enjoy the ride.
Released in 2002, “Do You Realize??” was the first single from Oklahoma’s The Flaming Lips tenth album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.
Not only would this album prove to be their breakthrough record, but it would also garner a 2003 Grammy Award nod for Best Rock Instrumental Performance for the final track on the album, “Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia).”
While I was never a big The Flaming Lips fan, I do find “Do You Realize” as one of the most accessible songs in their catalog. It’s also a damn good song, and almost 20 years later, it remains one of their most popular songs.
This was the song that broke the band into the “mainstream.”
[Fun Fact #1: “Do You Realize” was the Official Rock Song of Oklahoma from 2009 to April 2013. It expired after Governor Mary Fallin opted not to renew the previous governor’s executive order that made “Do You Realize??” the state’s “official rock song.” It has not been replaced …yet.]
“Do You Realize” also helped The Flaming Lips reach a broader international audience, reaching #32 in the UK Singles chart & #27 in Scotland.
A cursory listen, and you may think the song is a love song, by way of The Flaming Lips. But on a second or third listen you, ahem, “realize’ it’s about something a bit bigger. Perhaps the only thing more significant than love — death.
“Do You Realize??” is well within in The Flaming Lips wheelhouse, which is to say a bit peculiar …but not too alienating. More than anything, “Do You Realize??” is a peaceful rumination about the very thing we all have in common — our mortality.
The song was written during a particular period of tumult for the band.
The Lips multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd was attempting to kick heroin, and singer Wayne Coyne was dealing with the death of his father. But with all that darkness, the song has a beautiful message about telling those that you love, that you love them.
Do You Realize??
Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face
Do you realize we’re floating in space,
Do you realize that happiness makes you cry
Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die
And instead of saying all of your goodbyes, let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn’t go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round
Do you realize, oh, oh, oh?
Do you realize that everyone you know
Someday will die?
And instead of saying all of your goodbyes, let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn’t go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round
Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face
Do you realize?
Wayne Coty had this to say about “Do You Realize??” — “Whenever I analyze the scientific realities of what it means to be living here on Earth — in this galaxy — spinning around the sun — flying through space — a terror shock seizes me!!! I’m reminded once again of how precarious our whole existence is…”
[Fun Fact #2: The album that “Do You Realize” is on, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, was developed as a musical in 2007, apparently with Aaron Sorkin writing the book. It eventually made it to the stage in 2012.]
The Flaming Lips remain one of the most deliciously odd bands in music. Boxing the band in as just a psychedelic band from Oklahoma is much too reductive. While their music may fall into that realm, the band has incorporated broader all-encompassing art ethos to their work. It’s not just about the music:
To accurately tour behind their album The Soft Bulletin, the band created the concept of the “Headphone Concert.” An FM transmitter was set up at shows, and the concert was simultaneously broadcast to small Walkman-style receivers. Headphones were made available for free to audience members — in theory allowing audiences greater sonic clarity while still feeling the power of seeing the band live.
They made a low-budget indie film entitled Christmas on Mars — about Christmas in a colony set-up on the surface of Mars. The film was written by Wayne Coyne and premiered in 2008.
The Flaming Lips stayed on brand when they contributed the song “SpongeBob and Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy” to the soundtrack for The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
Also on brand was the cover of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” for the Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen album.
In 2009, The Flaming Lips partnered with Peaches and Henry Rollins to do a track-for-track cover of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon.
[Fun Fact #3: In 2006, Oklahoma City honored the band with a downtown alley named after The Flaming Lips, located at the center of the cities entertainment district. At the dedication ceremony, Coyne said: “…We’re on the way to becoming, I think, the fucking coolest city in America.”]
While the song failed to chart here in the United States, Rolling Stone ranked it #31 on their list of 100 Best Songs of the 2000s.
Wayne Coyne is thought to consider “Do You Realize??” the best song The Flaming Lips have ever written.
Perhaps naively, I like to think that if we could all have a better understanding that we’re all going to die. Regardless of what you may believe happens afterward, maybe we could find more common ground if we took the time to understand that “the sun never really goes down, it’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round.” Or took to time to tell those that we love, that we love them.
In such a divisive period, maybe “Do You Realize??” is the song we all need to hear …it’s undoubtedly the one we should listen to.
AOTD - Albums of the Day
For the week of September 7, 2020keithrhiggons.substack.com