Rush E

About

Rush E is a piece of piano music created as a spinoff of a Markiplier E (also known as Lord Marquaad E) joke. The song went viral on YouTube due to it being genuinely impossible for one human to play. However, some pianists have also attempted to rearrange the piece to make it manageable for one person to play. This led to a YouTube argument where one commenter boasted they could play the piece better than another person, and after being challenged by other commenters, actually delivered in a video of his own that also went viral.

Origin

On May 29th, 2018, YouTuber Sheet Music Boss uploaded a video in which they demonstrated "how to play" the Lord Marquaad E meme. The video was a joke, as it consisted of only hitting the E note on a keyboard (shown below, left). In the comments, users asked for a "Russian version" of the piece, as the channel had created "Russian" versions of meme posts before, such as "Rush B." ^[1] On June 1st, they delivered, transposing "Rush B" into the key of E minor to make "Rush E." The video gained over 29 million views in nearly four years (shown below, right).

Spread

"Rush E" was a quick hit with musicians on YouTube in 2018. On June 18th, 2018, YouTuber Elioth posted a video of him pretending to play the piece and growing increasingly frantic as it became more impossible, gaining over 59 million views in roughly four years (shown below, left). On March 17th, 2021, YouTuber ItzAleck47 posted a similar video, gaining over 1.6 million views in one year (shown below, right).

In June 2021, YouTuber ProLitening posted a video of himself attempting to play "Rush E" via an arrangement that was possible for one person. The account was later deleted, but the video was reuploaded to his new account, Litening, on July 28th, 2021 (shown below, left). In the comments of the video, YouTube commenter Fanchen said the performance was mediocre. Upon being challenged by other commenters, particularly a user named "Just A Guy Who Likes Hentai" to perform the piece better, Fanchen obliged. On June 24th, he posted his version of "Rush E," and it was widely thought of as the superior performance. It gained 6.5 million views in nine months.

On July 13th, 2021, Cr1TiKaL posted a video about the drama, gaining over 8.2 million views in roughly eight months (shown below).

On March 21st, 2022, Laughing Squid^[4] covered the Rush E trend in an article titled "A Googly-Eyed Transparent Player Piano That Speaks English and Can Play ‘Rush E,’" which discussed prominent YouTuber Mark Rober's self-playing piano attempting to perform the song (seen below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References