Bring Me Edelweiss


"Bring Me Edelweiss" is a song by Austrian band Edelweiss, first released in late 1988 as a stand-alone single, then later included on their debut album Wonderful World of Edelweiss. The song was a hit in Europe and New Zealand, to a lesser extent also in the USA and Canada, reaching the number-one position in six countries and peaking within the top five on several other music charts, going on to sell over five million copies worldwide. The song contains numerous samples from other artists, most notably ABBA's 1975 song "SOS" in the chorus, and features yodeling.

Origin

In 1988, British electronic band the Timelords scored a number-one hit in the United Kingdom and New Zealand with the novelty song "Doctorin' the Tardis", which samples a number of songs, including Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll" and The Sweet's "Block Buster!". As a result of the song's success, the band published a book entitled The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way). Written by members Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, the book instructed—as a joke—how to earn a number-one hit without much work. One instruction, "Compose your music with bits you've nicked from other songs", was supposedly followed by Edelweiss, allowing them to compose "Bring Me Edelweiss."

Content

The song features many samples. The primary sample, which the song's chorus is based on, is ABBA's 1975 song "SOS". ABBA usually do not allow other artists to sample their music, and they claimed Edelweiss never contacted them and never had permission to sample "SOS". However, members of the band claim that they managed to get one of ABBA's publishers to provide them with a contract during a drunken phone call in broken English. Other samples in the song include the 'Ow!'s from "Rock Me Amadeus" by fellow Austrian musician Falco, sections of Indeep's 1983 song "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life", and the 'Ah yeah' from Run-DMC's "Here We Go ". Yodeling is also common throughout the song, and the female vocals are provided by Austrian singer.
Jason Roth of NPR described the song's music video as "either a cleavage-soaked Alpine fever dream capable of sending Julie Andrews sprinting back to the nuns, or the Ricola commercial to end all Ricola commercials".

Track listings

European 7-inch single
UK and European 12-inch single
US 7-inch and cassette single
US 12-inch single
Canadian 12-inch single
2001 Austrian maxi-CD single
  1. "Bring Me Edelweiss" – 3:24
  2. "Bring Me Edelweiss" – 3:24
  3. "Bring Me Edelweiss" – 5:02
  4. "Bring Me Edelweiss" – 3:19

Charts

Year-end charts

Chart Position
Belgium 32
Europe 47
Netherlands 25
Netherlands 19
New Zealand 28
Switzerland 20
UK Singles 78
West Germany 22