The Greatest Show On Earth

Album: Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • The last track on Endless Forms Most Beautiful, this clocks in at 24 minutes, the longest Nightwish song to date. When HMV.com asked keyboardist and main songwriter Tuomas Holopainen how long it took to put it all together, he replied: "For some reason long songs are rather easy for me to write, so it didn't really take any longer than any other song on the album. The mixing process for just that one song took about two and a half weeks, though."
  • The song title is taken from a 2009 book by evolutionary biologist and atheist writer Richard Dawkins, concerning the evidence for biological evolution. Dawkins also contributes towards the album. Holopainen explained to HMV in March 2015: "I wrote him a letter a bit more than a year ago and explained the ideas we had for this album, mainly to do with evolution. Since one of the tracks would be named directly after one of his books, it felt like a perfect match to try to get him do some reciting on the album. He sent me an email a few weeks later accepting the invitation."

    "Later in 2014 we then recorded his parts at Hats Off Studios, Oxford. This is a huge honor for us, since Dawkins is one of our biggest heroes and his writings have been huge inspiration for the album."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Glen Ballard

Glen BallardSongwriter Interviews

Glen Ballard talks about co-writing and producing Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill album, and his work with Dave Matthews, Aerosmith and Annie Lennox.

Black Sabbath

Black SabbathFact or Fiction

Dwarfs on stage with an oversize Stonehenge set? Dabbling in Satanism? Find out which Spinal Tap-moments were true for Black Sabbath.

Al Jourgensen of Ministry

Al Jourgensen of MinistrySongwriter Interviews

In the name of song explanation, Al talks about scoring heroin for William Burroughs, and that's not even the most shocking story in this one.

Tony Joe White

Tony Joe WhiteSongwriter Interviews

The writer of "Rainy Night in Georgia" and "Polk Salad Annie" explains how he cooks up his Louisiana swamp rock.

David Gray

David GraySongwriter Interviews

David Gray explains the significance of the word "Babylon," and talks about how songs are a form of active imagination, with lyrics that reveal what's inside us.

Macabre Mother Goose: The Dark Side of Children's Songs

Macabre Mother Goose: The Dark Side of Children's SongsSong Writing

"London Bridge," "Ring Around the Rosie" and "It's Raining, It's Pouring" are just a few examples of shockingly morbid children's songs.