God Bless Tiny Tim was the first album by Tiny Tim. Released in 1968 on the Reprise label, it included "Tip-Toe Thru' The Tulips With Me" (the song which made him famous), a version of "I Got You Babe", and a collection of more obscure songs. Many of the songs have humorous lyrics, are sung for humorous effect, or have an unexpected hook. It is widely praised, but was not released on CD until the late 1990s, and then only in Japan.
The album was produced by Richard Perry, who had produced Captain Beefheart's first album, Safe As Milk, and was to go on to produce Diana Ross, Harry Nilsson, Rod Stewart and Ringo Starr. The arrangements are by Artie Butler.
The songs were written by a variety of composers, most from the early 20th century, and most rather obscure, although "I Got You Babe" was by Sonny Bono, and "Stay Down Here Where You Belong" was by Irving Berlin.
For some of the album, Tim sings in his unusual falsetto style. However, on a number of songs, "Stay Down Here Where You Belong", "The Coming Home Party" and others) he sings baritone, demonstrating his voice's great range. In "On the Old Front Porch", "Daddy, Daddy, What is Heaven Like?" and on "I Got You Babe" he sings both baritone and falsetto, alternating between the two. A joke in "I Got You Babe" is revealed in the last words where both baritone and falsetto voices unexpectedly sing at once, revealing the apparently agile duet is actually himself singing double-tracked.
Read more about God Bless Tiny Tim: Track Listing
Famous quotes containing the words bless and/or tiny:
“O kinsmen of the Three in One,
O kinsmen, bless the hands that play.
The notes they waken shall live on
When all this heavy history’s done;
Our hands, our hands must ebb away.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Mark the babe
Not long accustomed to this breathing world;
One that hath barely learned to shape a smile,
Though yet irrational of soul, to grasp
With tiny finger—to let fall a tear;
And, as the heavy cloud of sleep dissolves,
To stretch his limbs, bemocking, as might seem,
The outward functions of intelligent man.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)