B-side "Queen of Chinatown" Format 7" Length 4:00 | Released 1977 Genre Euro disco Label Ariola Records | |
"Alphabet" is a song by French singer Amanda Lear, released as a single from her debut album I Am a Photograph in 1977 by Ariola Records.
Contents
Song information
"Alphabet" is a mid-tempo disco song, arranged by Charly Ricanek and Anthony Monn, and is largely based on the melody from Johann Sebastian Bach's Prelude in C minor, BWV 999. Autobiographical lyrics were written by Amanda Lear and include her personal associations to each letter of the alphabet, recited over the music. It a 2013 interview, Lear stated that "Alphabet" was "the first song to be completely just spoken onto classical music".
The song wears a subtitle "Prelude in C by J. S. Bach" in the track listing of its parent album, and was also known as "My Alphabet" when released as the B-side on the single "Queen of Chinatown". French- and Italian-language versions of the song were also recorded, entitled "Mon alphabet" and "Alfabeto", respectively. "Mon alphabet" was the B-side on the single "Tomorrow", released in France earlier that year.
"Alphabet", just like the previous single, "Blue Tango", at that time was released only in the Netherlands. "Queen of Chinatown" made the B-side, however, it would become Lear's next single the same year. "Alphabet" was not a commercial success and did not chart.
Music video
A music video was produced for German TV show Musikladen, using the chroma key technique. It shows Amanda Lear performing the song with respective letters of the alphabet appearing in the background. The music video was released on a 3-DVD box set Das beste aus dem Musikladen Vol. 1 in 2012, together with ten other videos that Lear made for Musikladen.