''The Oriental Nightfish'' is a 1978

animated film Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...

directed by

Ian Emes Ian Ronald Emes (born 17 August 1949) is a British artist and film director. He is known for using innovative and experimental film techniques, and for being Pink Floyd's original animator. Emes' animations have featured in major exhibitions, i ...

which accompanies the

Linda McCartney Linda Louise McCartney, Lady McCartney ( Eastman; September 24, 1941 – April 17, 1998) was an American photographer, musician, animal rights activist, vegetarian cookbook author and advocate, and entrepreneur. She was the keyboardist in th ...

composition "The Oriental Nightfish". The film has a running time of 4m 30s and features animation by Ian Emes with the track "The Oriental Nightfish" performed by

Wings A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expresse ...

, the band Linda and her husband

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

were members of.

Creation

In 2010, Emes commented:

I got pissed off whisky and put the music on as loud as it would go, and lay on my back in the living room and let it wash over me. The whisky did indeed help, and I came up with this weird idea where alien forces enter this building where someone who looks like Linda McCartney plays a Gothic Expressionistic Wurlitzer. This woman with blonde hair is penetrated, got naked and inhabited by the alien force, then she's replicated, before becoming a comet that explodes. The film was a bit weird, scary and a little bit sexual. Yet it was later put on Paul McCartney's Rupert The Bear video for children. The kids who watched it years ago are now in their 20s, and they've set up an internet site called The Oriental Nightfish Haunted My Childhood. I guess it freaked them out and opened their imagination.

Personnel

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations ...

moog synthesizer The Moog synthesizer is a modular synthesizer developed by the American engineer Robert Moog. Moog debuted it in 1964, and Moog's company R. A. Moog Co. (later known as Moog Music) produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 20 ...

- bass,

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

Denny Laine Denny Laine (born Brian Frederick Hines, 29 October 1944) is an English musician, singer, and songwriter, known as a founder of two major rock bands: the Moody Blues, with whom he played from 1964 to 1966, and Wings, with whom he played from 1 ...

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

Availability

The track "The Oriental Nightfish" was released in 1998 on the studio/compilation album ''

Wide Prairie ''Wide Prairie'' is a posthumous compilation album by Linda McCartney, compiled by her husband Paul McCartney and released in October 1998, roughly six months after her death due to breast cancer. The idea for the album was inspired by a fan wh ...

'' following Linda McCartney's death earlier that year. The video for "The Oriental Nightfish" was made available on the VHS release of ''

Rupert and the Frog Song ''Rupert and the Frog Song'' is a 1984 animated short film based on the comic strip character Rupert Bear, written and produced by Paul McCartney and directed by Geoff Dunbar. The making of ''Rupert and the Frog Song'' began in 1981 and ended in ...

''. However, the DVD ''Tales of Wonder: Music and Animation Classics'' (2004) (also released as ''Paul McCartney's Music and Animation Collection'') does not contain it.

Sources

External links

Emes' page on Oriental Nightfish
1978 films British animated short films Paul McCartney Films directed by Ian Emes 1970s English-language films 1970s British films {{short-animation-film-stub