Music TheoryPrint

Steve Reich

Come Out (Reich)

Come Out is a 1966 tape piece by American composer Steve Reich. Civil rights activist Truman J. Nelson asked Reich to create a piece using recordings of voices for a benefit for the Harlem Six; Come

References in other recordings and media#

  • Captain Beefheart’s song “Moonlight on Vermont,” from Trout Mask Replica (1969), includes the phrase “come out to show them” repeated several times. Pamela Des Barres recalled the piece being played on repeat during the rehearsals for the Trout Mask Replica sessions. Mark Saucier’s notes on “Moonlight on Vermont” reinterpret the phrase: “somewhere in this section he’s clearly singing ‘Come out to Sodom, come out to Sodom.’”
  • Come Out was sampled at the beginning of the Madvillain song “America’s Most Blunted”.
  • Part of the sampled quotation also appears in the song “The Caliphate” on the collaborative album Voir Dire by Earl Sweatshirt and the Alchemist.
  • It also appears on the Unkle Bruise Blood remix of Tortoise’s song “Djed.”
  • Camper Van Beethoven performed an abbreviated “cover version” of Come Out on their 2004 album New Roman Times.
  • The quotation again appears at the beginning of the Maximillian Colby song “New Jello”.
  • A sample from the quotation is repeatedly looped on the D
  • Note track “D
  • Votion”.
  • A part of the quotation is sampled in the track “Rush” by Prometheus (Benji Vaughan) on his third studio album Spike.
  • The track appears on Nicolas Jaar’s Resident Advisor 500 Mix, which was recorded in December 2015 in Brooklyn, New York.
  • In 2016, DJs Leon Vynehall and Ellen Allien both opened their respective entries in BBC Radio 1’s Essential Mix series with a clip from the piece.
  • Doug Gillard’s “Come out and Show Me” from his album Parade On (2014), contains the eponymous lyrics as well as a reference to Reich’s original using the title words in the background of the latter part of the song.
  • JPEGMAFIA replicates the line at the beginning of the song “Polly”.
  • Slauson Malone replicates the line in the songs “My feet’s hurt ‘I was a fugitive but then I realized there was nowhere I could run to’ (see page 110 and 113)” and “My feet’s tired (see page 108)”.
  • The piece is used in the soundtrack of the film Diane.
  • A small section is used in season 1, episode 7 of the TV show Devs.
  • Blom, Eric, ed. Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 5th edition, hardcover ed. 10 vols. St. Martin’s Press, 1954.
  • Griffiths, Paul. “Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians” Grove Music Online: the World’s Premier Authority on All Aspects of Music. Ed. L Macy. Oxford Univ. Pr. 7 Nov. 2005.
  • Steve Reich Interview -Gabrielle Zuckerman, July 2002
  • Bomb Magazine: Steve Reich and Beryl Korot, by Julia Wolfe
  • Transcription and analysis of Come Out, by Michael Schell
Composer
Steve Reich