Top 10 Songs with Yodeling
What is yodeling?The English word yodel comes from the German / Austro-Bavarian word jodeln, meaning "to utter the syllable jo" ("yo" in English). Yodeling is an important feature of folk music in Switzerland, Austria and southern Germany, used in both old and contemporary folk music. The most popular form of this vocal technique is the Alpine yodeling but it's used in many other cultures around the world. Yodeling became popular in the 1830s.
Yodeling (aka yodelling or jodeling) is a singing style characterised by repeated rapid changes of pitch between the low-pitch and high-pitch register. High-pitch singing often employs falsetto.
OK, let's sing it fast: Joladadijoladadijoladadijoladadi-jo-o-ooh-jo!
The idea of my list is to show the international spread of yodelling and its use in different music genres as well as in different decades. But I guess Martin_Canine may help with more songs from the area where yodelling originated (Austria, Switzerland and Germany).
It's from the Yodel King Franzl Lang himself. How can it not be number 1?
He's an English-born Australian singer of easy listening and country music who often incorporated yodeling. Lyrics of this song even include some instructions:
"I went across to Switzerland
Where all the Yodellers be
To try to learn to yodel
And met a yodellin' gal
She taught me to yodel
Well now I'm gonna teach you
How to yodel just like me
It's easy when you're singin'
To go yodel-diddly-oh-oh-dee
First you take a deep breath
Then it's K.O. one, two, three
And then you'll hear a yodel
If you listen close to me"
The song title translates to "The Yodeling Whistler". A song of 1948 by the Belgian musician Bobbejaan Schoepen. Besides yodeling, he makes other funny noises in this song.
My German is very limited but I think the title translates to 'We Are A Yodel Family'. Oesch's die Dritten are a contemporary Yodel Volksmusik family group from Switzerland. Their yodeler is a pretty hot woman.
How could I forget this? Last year's Song Contest was an awesome one. The last few years were meh except for Jamala and Conchita Wurst who delivered two of the greatest songs of the decade with their respective winning titles. This year blew me away. We had a lot of cultural and musical diversity, and not just the uninspired interchangeable pop that dominated the last few years.
This is an interesting combination: it's obviously a modern song, with a modern beat, yodeling and rapping.
I think this is the most famous song with yodeling in German-speaking countries, at least in the big cities. And that's mostly because it served as the title song for the German dub of "Heidi, Girl of the Alps". The Japanese series is a cult classic from my parents' generation that everyone in their age knows in German-speaking countries.
The fun thing is my generation was raised on anime because series like "Inuyasha", "Pokémon", "Digimon Adventure", "Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne", "Ranma 1/2", and many, many more dominated the German TV landscape during the daytime from the late 90s to the mid-to-late 2000s. That's why anime is not regarded as nerdy over here but cool. Nevertheless, even though Heidi is basically an anime and even has popular filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki involved, most people of my generation find "Heidi" embarrassing, maybe because it is so harmless, or for the reasons I wrote about on "The Lonely Goatherd".
A great song which came out in two versions: a short one which was a single in Australia and received a good amount of commercial airplay, and a long version which I prefer. The band obviously enjoyed playing this classic. A lot of enthusiasm! I reckon they were pretty exhausted at the end of the recording - yodeling at this intensity for this long is no mean feat.
This rock song was released in 1971 and it's a very unusual example of yodeling because rock music doesn't usually include yodeling. Focus is a Dutch rock band. I like this song because it's fun to hear heavy guitars followed by happy yodeling. Later, the band released "Hocus Pocus 2" which is a faster version.
A singer from the US who recorded this song in 1934. He's really very good. His vocal in the second half is wow! That's what I call a sustain - over 20 seconds. He said he learned how to sustain his yodel for an unusually long time while swimming underwater for several minutes at a time.
The greatest yodeler ever, in my opinion. Love his singing and yodeling.
Ursprung Buam are an Austrian folk music trio from Tyrol - a popular touring group in Austria that often tours many places across the European Union.
The yodeling in the intro is very fast. I am pretty sure the title translates to The Yodel Language.
Slim Whitman was an American country and western music singer-songwriter who had yodeling abilities.
This is a metal cover of the Focus song. The legendary German metal band Helloween released their cover in 1999. Who knew a metal singer could yodel? Yes, Helloween singer Andi Deris is yodeling! Don't miss this one - sudden yodeling added to loud and fast metal guitars and drumming is very entertaining (at least to me).
The Cranberries are a famous Irish band and in this song their singer Dolores O'Riordan is yodeling.
She yodels, but not very much (compared to the songs that are higher).
Almost the entire song is yodeling. Haha, is this the reason they named this song Ku-Ku-Jodel?
A Frank Ifield cover by a 12-year-old America's Got Talent contestant (circa 2007). She taught herself how to yodel from a tape and an instruction book when she was 7! Wow! Her audition and other performances are available on YouTube. Her version of this song was also officially recorded and released.