"Castaways" is a song that aired in the animated children's TV show ''

The Backyardigans ''The Backyardigans'' ( ) is an animated musical children's television series created by Janice Burgess for Nickelodeon. The series was written and recorded at Nickelodeon Animation Studio. It centers on five anthropomorphic animal neighbors ...

''. It went viral on

TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...

in 2021.

History

The song was originally released in 2005, on the first season of ''The Backyardigans''. It aired on the show's 11th episode of the same name. It was later released in the album ''The Backyardigans'' along with other songs from the show.

Musical style

The song is set to a bossa nova style. It is sung by a group of children, which makes unclear what some of the notes sung are. The lyrics are fairly simple and talk about the group of friends being

castaway A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a desert island, either to evade kidnapping, captors or the world in general. A person may also be ...

s (per the title), lost with no way to go back home.

Virality

The song became viral on

in March 2021 and was included in over 1,200,000 videos on the platform. After achieving virality on the platform, users contributed to the song rising in

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...

charts, with more than 15 million streams. The song's virality has prompted covers and reimagined versions in different genres to be uploaded to TikTok. Merlysha Pierre (swagsurfff) is believed to be the first, or one of the first people, on the platform to upload videos about ''The Backyardigans'' and the song "Castaways". The song was later the subject of a video by

music theory Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the "Elements of music, ...

YouTuber A YouTuber is a content creator and social media influencer who uploads or creates videos on the online video-sharing website YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006 ...

Adam Neely, who talked about the backstory of the song and its production, as well as details regarding its composition and what qualities it has that might have contributed to its popularity. The song's virality made another song from the show, "Into the Thick of It!", trend in the Spotify Viral 50 United States chart. Another Backyardigans song, “International Super Spy” trended on TikTok later in the year, but did not chart anywhere. The song has also inspired many remixes and playlists to be released and compiled within months of the viral takeoff. In June 2022, the song was featured on the latest Nick Jr. series '' Face's Music Party'' in the episode "Pirates/Confidence".

Song credits

Producer

Evan Lurie Evan Lurie (born 1954 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States) is an American composer and musician. Playing piano and occasionally organ, Evan was a founding member of the band the Lounge Lizards, along with his saxophonist brother John Lurie. ...

* Douglas Wieselman

Songwriters

* Douglas Joel Wieselman - composer * Leslie Antonio Valdes - lyricist * McPaul Smith Lawrence - lyricist

Vocals

Corwin C. Tuggles Corwin C. Tuggles (born January 1991) is an American actor. He was the singing voice of Tyrone on ''The Backyardigans'' during its first season. On Broadway, he was in '' Caroline, or Change'', and Dr. Seuss' ''How the Grinch Stole Christmas!'' ...

- as Tyrone * Jamia Simone Nash - as Uniqua * Sean Curley - as Pablo

Charts

''Castaways'' debuted on the #1 spot on Spotify's Viral 50 United States chart for May 12, 2021. The song remained #1 on the Viral 50 chart until June 4, 2021, and fell to second place on June 5, 2021.

References

{{reflist TikTok trends 2005 songs Songs written for animated series Bossa nova songs Internet memes introduced in 2021