So Get Up


"So Get Up", written and vocalized by Ithaka,, is a 1992 spoken-word electronic dance music vocal-poem lyric song more frequently credited to the Portuguese house music production duo Underground Sound of Lisbon, German trance music duo Cosmic Gate, the Spanish group Committee and
London-based DJ/producers, Stretch n Vern.
Ithaka Darin Pappas lived and recorded in Lisbon, Portugal, from 1992 to 1998. His poem "So Get Up" was written and first vocalized on December 13th of 1992 for a program called Quarto Bairro on Rádio Comercial in Lisbon. The station's radio presenter, Pedro Costa, recorded Ithaka's voice live on-air. Two months later, in March 1993, a techno-pop demo was made in Manchester, England, with a student engineer-producer. The initial 'publicly released, physically manufactured' musical element backing the poem was created in 1994 by DJ Vibe and Doctor J aka Underground Sound of Lisbon who invited Ithaka to re-record the poem as a guest vocalist on their first release.
USL's nine-minute progressive house version of "So Get Up" appeared on the B-side of their "Chapter One" 12-inch vinyl release. In Portugal this was distributed by Kaos Records, and worldwide by Tribal UK and U.S. label Twisted Records. It soon became a major Portuguese dance music "national anthem" and influenced a large populace of Portuguese youth to get interested in house music, famous for Ithaka's shouting "The end of the earth is upon us. Pretty soon it'll all turn to dust, So Get Up!, forget the past, go outside and have a blast!"
In 1994, the UK edition of the single, had several remixes by Danny Tenaglia and Junior Vasquez as well as an original mix and two different a cappella variations. This first international edition sold approximately 80,000 copies, with over a million copies of the song sold between 1994-1995 via international compilations, reaching the #1 ranking on specialized dance music charts around the world.
Thru the last two and a half decades, So Get Up under varying titles such as; "Get Up", "Insane", "Go Insane", "Get Up! Go Insane!", "Forget The Past", "Next Life", "See You In The Next Life" "The End Of The Earth", "The End Of The Earth Is Upon Us", "Hardventure", "Headcharge", "Belther", "Last Resurrection", "Earthquake", "PPF ", "Intensity", "Viginti Etduo", "Trance Line", "Zombie", "All Points North", "Speed O.J.", etc. has been remixed, sampled and released in a multitude of EDM styles on the records of; Fatboy Slim, Stretch n Vern, Oxia, Peter Bailey, Orion's Voice, JJ Mullor, Dani Sbert, Lexington Avenue, Dylan, Derek Marin, Public Domain, K-Traxx, Technoboy, Bob Ray & Van Dyuk, Ben Gold, Pelari, Meat Katie and many others.
In 1995, a remix of So Get Up, retitled "Trance Line" by the Madrid production team Committee rose to #3 in January of 1995 on the Billboard Singles Charts for Spain, remaining in the Top Ten for more than a month. Committee's Trance Line versions, which also had several mixes of their own utilized all of Ithaka's original vocal, but none of Underground Sound Of Lisbon's instrumental.
In 2003, Miss Kittin used the entire "So Get Up" poem as part of the intro on her album Radio Caroline Vol.1.
Six remixes were initially made of "So Get Up" in 2014, but because two a capellas were included in the first U.S. and U.K. releases on Tribal Records, rogue musical versions using the vocal have snowballed out of control. Hundreds of House, Progressive House, Trance, Techno, Tech House, Industrial,Rock, Dubstep and Gabber producers have simply placed the So Get Up vocal on their own instrumentals and called them their own. To date, there are now several hundred released remixes using Ithaka Darin Pappas' original vocal recording. As of late 2016, So Get Up now holds the distinction of being the most remixed vocal a cappella in musical history.
"So Get Up" by its individual producers and DJs has been played or performed at large-scale dance parties around the global such as the Electric Daisy Carnival in New York and Orlando as interpreted by Cosmic Gate. In early 2017, Armin Van Buuren opened a vinyl set at his own A State of Trance festival in Utrecht, Netherlands by playing the "So Get Up" a capella from 1994.

Lyrics

The end of the earth is upon us. Pretty soon it'll all turn to dust.
So get up. Forget the past. Go outside and have a blast.
Go a thousand miles in a jet airplane. Go out of your mind go insane.
To a place you never been before. Eat ice cream or you'll lick the floor.
'Cause, the end of the earth is upon us. Pretty soon it'll all turn to dust.
Goodbye my friends. Goodbye world. I'll see you in the next life.

"So Get Up" controversies

In 1993, Ithaka had originally written and recited the poem called "So Get Up" for his weekly segment of a program called Quarto Bairro on Rádio Comercial in Lisbon, Portugal. The next year he rerecorded it as a guest performer to be the primary vocal of a B-side single for the Portuguese dance music group called Underground Sound Of Lisbon. The song became an instant national hit and was soon released internationally as a ten-mix, double-vinyl set on New York's Tribal Records. The song climbed to 1st place on the Billboard's Independent Dance Music Charts for the U.K.—and number 52nd in the United States.
Since 1995, the song has been remixed over a thousand times including versions by such performers as Fat Boy Slim, Junior Vasquez, Danny Tenaglia, and Cosmic Gate, and has appeared on over one hundred compilations with combined sales in the millions. As the original music has been stripped away by each succeeding producer, the only singularly unifying element of all 1,000+ mixes of "So Get Up" is Ithaka's poem and his vocals. The song, which was considered the first modern "Portuguese" musical export, was released without a featuring Ithaka credit, even though Ithaka is the primary publishing rights owner of the track and never a member of the Underground Sound Of Lisbon project. Reportedly no record royalties were ever paid to Ithaka Darin Pappas.
In 1999, Samsung in Korea featured a version of "So Get Up" for a national My Jet printer ad series featuring actress Jun Ji-Hyun. According to almost all online biographical sources, the commercial transformed Ji-Hyun into a teen idol in Korea and today Jun Ji-Hyun is one of the most prominent celebrities in the entire country. The commercial, which was made by Cheil Communications, did not get authorization from either Ithaka or Stretch N Vern for the usage.
In 2013, German Trance superstars Cosmic Gate also excluded Ithaka's vocal-lyrical credit even though they licensed the entire "So Get Up" a capella. Without a doubt, Cosmic Gate's version of has become the biggest commercial success of So Get Up to date. In October 2013, it charted at number 1 on Beatport's trance music charts after being featured on Armin Van Buuren's compilation A State of Trance 2013, on Hardwell On Air Episode 133 and on Cosmic Gate's album Start to Feel, with additional mixes by Pelari, Alex di Stefano and Ben Gold. It has been a festival favorite for the group since its release, being performed at Amsterdam Dance Event, Electric Daisy Carnival, Ultra Music Festival and on Cosmic Gate's own world tour.

Versions, remixes, uses and sampling

Documented uses of vocal and poem, So Get Up in modern music appearing under varying titles. Poem was originally recorded for Radio Cómercial in Lisbon, Portugal in 1992. However, most musical versions have stemmed from illegal uses or sampling of the a cappella version that was recorded for Underground Sound Of Lisbon in Portugal, 1994. Note: This incomplete list includes both legal and unauthorized uses.

1992