The volume knobs of Tufnel's Marshall amplifier went up to eleven
"Up to eleven" or "these go to eleven" is an idiom from popular culture which has come to refer to anything being exploited to its utmost abilities, or apparently exceeding them, such as a sound volume control. Similarly, the expression "turning it up to eleven" refers to the act of taking something to an extreme. In 2002 the phrase entered the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary with the definition "up to maximum volume."[1]
[edit] Original scene from This Is Spinal Tap
The phrase was coined in a scene from the 1984 mockumentary/rockumentary This Is Spinal Tap by the character Nigel Tufnel, played by Christopher Guest. In this scene Nigel gives the rockumentary's director, Marty DiBergi, played by Rob Reiner, a tour of his stage equipment. While Nigel is showing Marty his Marshall guitar amplifiers, he points out one in particular whose control knobs all have the highest setting of eleven, unlike standard amplifiers, whose volume settings are typically numbered from 0 to 10, believing that this numbering actually increases the volume of the amp ("It's one louder"). When Marty asks why the ten setting is not simply set to be louder, Nigel pauses, clearly confused, before responding, "These go to eleven".[2][3]
[edit] Real life
As a consequence of the film, real bands and musicians started buying equipment whose knobs went up to 11, or even higher, with Eddie Van Halen reputedly being the first to do so.[4] Marshall, the company that provided amplifiers for the film that the custom marked knobs were applied to, now sells amplifiers such as its JCM900 (first sold in 1990) whose knobs are marked from 0 to 20.[4][5]
[edit] Other references in popular culture
- Movie ratings at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) are given in a range from 1 to 10, except for the rating for This is Spinal Tap, which goes to 11.[6]
- Red vs. Blue has an episode in season 8 entitled "This One Goes to Eleven", which shows one of the characters fighting with extreme prowess and strength.
- Michelle Branch uses the lyric "What we got feels so good / Like I'm climbing a stairway to heaven / And it turns me on / When we dial it up all the way to eleven" in the song "Loud Music" from her album West Coast Time (2011).
- The Magnetic Fields uses the lyric "There'll be time enough for sex and drugs in heaven / When our pheromones are turned up to eleven" in the song "Time Enough for Rocking When We're Old" from their album 69 Love Songs.
- Frank Black uses the lyric "Look up to heaven, yeah / And turn it up to eleven." in the song "Pray a Little Faster."
- Puscifer uses the lyric "'Bout to turn it up to eleven" multiple times in the song "Man Overboard", the first single off the 2011 album, "Conditions of My Parole".
- The volume on the sound system of the Tesla Model S electric vehicle goes up to 11.[8]
- In the Guitar Hero series of video games, the in-game volume controls for sound effects and music have a maximum value of 11.
- In the film Toy Story 2 a closeup of Evil Emperor Zurg's death ray reveals that its maximum power setting is 11.
- This is Spinal Tap - Limited Marshall Amp Edition version of the movie comes with a working Marshall amplifier that goes to 11.
- KMFDM uses the lyric "KRANK! Krank it to eleven!" in the chorus of their song Krank, the first single off their seventeenth studio album WTF?!.
- The Smithereens, in the liner notes to their album 11, proudly claim that this album "goes to 11".
- In the film Role Models the character Augie Farques is making a motivational speech and says, "So let us raise our swords in victory, crank this sh*t up to 11 and let's rip this realm a new *sshole!"
- Joy Electric's song The Robot Beat (We're Back) contains the lyric "turn the tape machine up to 11, we're back".
[edit] See also
[edit] References
