Turn It On

Album: Transmissions From The Satellite Heart (1993)
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Songfacts®:

  • Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne explained the meaning of this rather prescient anthem in the band's bio Staring At Sound: The True Story Of Oklahoma's Fabulous Flaming Lips: "Not to say that I could peer into the future and see it coming, but there was some vague notion of whatever the Internet was pointing towards, where you're sitting in your own house and you're connected to everything around the world, all your friends and all the things you really like, in your own little space and time."
  • Two music videos were made. The most famous is a clip directed by Wayne Coyne and Bradley Beesley. Wayne sums up the premise: "Three college girls have a transcendental experience one night washing clothes at the laundromat - the band trips off on Christmas lights." The girls are played by Wayne's then-wife Michelle, drummer Steven Drozd's girlfriend Becky Stokesberry, and the band's friend Emma Rolls.

    The alternate video, directed by Michael Lavine, features a little girl tuning into the band on an old-fashioned, floor model TV set.
  • This was used in the 2008 movie The Promotion, starring John C. Reilly and Seann William Scott.

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