I am a big There Might Be Giants fan, and this video of their cover version of “Istanbul Not Constantinople” makes me happy. I’m not going to explain it, my grasp of the song meaning is fuzzy although I’m good at explaining “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” which Liz does in Lavender’s Blue, but mostly TMBG just delights me. I’m good with the absurd as long as it embraces life and knows its limits: “That’s nobody’s business but the Turks.”
Jennifer Crusie is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author and co-author of twenty-three novels, one book of literary criticism, miscellaneous articles, essays, novellas, and short stories, and the editor of three essay anthologies. She lives in a cottage in Pennsylvania, where she often stares at the ceiling and counts her blessings.
Find out more about Jenny’s published works by visiting JennyCrusie.com
23 Responses
I fell in love with this song through Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show. It still cracks me up, I don’t know why… But it always makes me smile,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4phHwSSing
Funny!
Thank you for that! I never had heard/seen the song. I was mostly working South America in the 90s. It is delightful. It has a Cole Porter feel to it for me. The animation is fun, I’ll probably share it with my granddaughter.
I never had or I had never (/:;((&”&$)
I never had or I had never (/:;((&”&$)
I have a vague memory of them once having a phone number to call for a song of the day. But it’s so vague, it could just be nonsense.
I think they moved into music for kids. They had a very great song about no meaning no.
I love that song. At random times it still runs through my head. I’ve no idea where I first heard it or learned it. I just like it! The versions from Jenny and Deborah made me laugh out loud. Thank you both!
Per the Wikipedia, the song was written in 1953 on the 500th anniversary of the Turkish conquest of the city. Per the Google AI, the Turks did not get sticky about its name until 1930, when they started refusing mail addressed to “Constantinople” and objected to its use in diplomatic communications, much as they now (since 2022) are trying to dictate the English form of the country’s name as Türkiye, although I don’t know whether they are refusing mail yet. (I had therefore sort of imagined the song dated from the 1930s, since I remembered seeing Constantinople used in older writing.)
I never heard it till it showed up on Raising Hope back in the 2010’s. Loved it immediately.
What a great way to start my morning.
Cute song! Where do you find this stuff? I wonder if the president knows this song? He does seem to like changing the names of things.
Yes. Even short of renaming the country the UST, he could have the Postal Service reject any mail to the EUA or États-Unis or Vereinigte Staaten. (The Germans do already use ” die USA,” though.)
By the way, I checked, and the Turks do still accept mail to “Turkey.” Myanmar rejects mail to “Burma,” though.
I’m laughing to see it here, as I am closing an Istanbul lecture on a cruise ship in November with a clip of the 1953 version: just got my friend to insert it in the PowerPoint last week, and here it pops up again! 🙂
I love that song, too! I first heard it a long, long time ago. It’s nice to know it’s still out there.
I also have a vague recollection of it from long ago.
Bette Midler used to do a very fast version of this song in the 1980’s. I had a ticket to see her in Minneapolis in1986, but she got sick and cancelled. By the time they rescheduled the show I was in cooking school and unable to attend. But I owned a copy of her live album and played this song many times in the following years.
My husband and I love that song and “That’s nobody’s business but the Turks” is a catch phrase in our house.
I loved Bunheads, Amy Sherman-Palladino’s tribute to dance. Also Sutton Foster!
One of my favorite dance numbers is from one of the characters (Sasha) working out her feelings about her divorcing parents with a dance to this song. No cuts! And the mirrors-I don’t know how they filmed it. If the link doesn’t come through it’s easily found on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/WTO10Xgl0eM?si=UIRw-k-KyJ7rPqEs
New York was indeed once New Amsterdam (which happened when it was a small village), but aside from the translation of Nouvelle-Orléans as New Orleans, I can’t think of any American city or noteable large town that’s had a name change in a very long time. Bismarck ND even survived WWI, although it came under strong pressure in 1918. Of course, the name changes elsewhere (and in New Amsterdam) largely seem to happen after conquests or revolutions, although occasionally during ongoing wars. And we’ve not had any of the first two since the US had large cities (given that the Confederates weren’t playing the name changing game and that none of the large towns named after British royalty got renamed. )
We sang the song periodically as we anticipated flying to Istanbul in March of this year. However, the idiot started an illegal war that stopped us from going.
I loved it when I first heard it in 1953 and it’s always been a favor of mine to sing to myself. Love this version.
Does anyone have a comforting show to watch in the autumn? I used to re-watch Gilmore Girls, but not anymore.
Maybe I’ll re-watch Schitt’s Creek.
I was first exposed to this song through Tiny Tunes, or possibly Animaniacs back when I was in high school. This video is still what I picture when I listen.
https://youtu.be/IqJXxHi6RwQ?si=Y9VpyKAKOBTwpZIS