The Real Song For The Deaf

Album: Songs For The Deaf (2002)
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Songfacts®:

  • Long before ASMR was a thing, Queens Of The Stone Age released "The Real Song For The Deaf," a 92-second collage of soft pulses and taps. According to Nick Oliveri, the main songwriter on the Songs For The Deaf album along with group leader Josh Homme, the song was, in fact, created for deaf people. "We got an organization of deaf people to rub balloons against the mic at such a low frequency that they could feel it," he told Planet Sound. "Turn up your speakers at home and you'll, ah, hear it."
  • Some artists embedded hidden songs at the end of their CDs that you could only hear if you left it playing after the final track, but Queens Of The Stone Age put "The Real Song For The Deaf" at the beginning as a hidden track, which is far less practical. The only way to hear it was by starting the disc (Track 1 is "You Think I Ain't Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire"), then rewinding it. Not every CD player had this rewind function, so it didn't work for everyone.

    There is a hidden track at the end of the disc as well called "Mosquito Song."
  • The album is called Songs For The Deaf under the aegis that it's so heavy, even deaf people can hear it. "The Real Song For The Deaf" is the only track that deaf people can take in, though, but according to a report in Metal Hammer, when Queens Of The Stone Age played a show in Hull, England, at a club called Spiders, a group of 37 hearing-impaired individuals showed up because they thought it was literally a "songs for the deaf night."

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