Arcade Fire Record New Version of ‘Wake Up’ for Where The Wild Things Are

The Arcade Fire

Since the trailer for Spike Jonze’s upcoming big-screen adaptation of children’s classic Where The Wild Things Are hit the internet on Wednesday it has been viewed millions of times by people the world over.

Apart from the gushing praise it is receiving for the outstanding visuals it provides, much of the discussion has been around the song used in the trailer. It is of course Arcade Fire’s ‘Wake Up’ from their first album Funeral; however anyone who has listened to it as many times as most fans have will be able to tell that it is not the version found on the aforementioned album; this one sounds much more stripped down. There was speculation as to the origin of this recording; some claiming it was a live acoustic version spliced with the studio version or maybe just the studio version with a few tracks removed.

Yesterday speculation was ended when Arcade Fire front man Win Butler confirmed in an MTV article that they had indeed recorded a completely new version of Wake Up “specifically for the film.”

It is as yet unknown whether there will be any more Arcade Fire songs on the soundtrack; but we do know that Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer Karen O has been working on the film soundtrack with composer Carter Burwell and possibly Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox.

If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, check it out at The Film Stage.

– Rob Hakimian