"To the Bone" / Welcome to the Underground

About

"To the Bone", also known as Undertale Rap and by its opening lyric Welcome to the Underground, is a 2016 song by JT Music. The song, sung in character by Sans and Papyrus from the 2015 indie video game Undertale, achieved widespread recognition and has often been used and referenced in memes.

Origin

On October 16th, 2016, the music video for Undertale-inspired rap song "To the Bone" by JT Music premiered on YouTube.^[1] The song, sung in character by the skeleton brothers Sans and Papyrus from Undertale, describes the premise and the key ideas of the game. The video, animated in Source Filmmaker by SFM Tales, accumulated over 137 million views on YouTube in seven years (shown below).

Welcome to the underground
How was the fall?
If you wanna look around
Give us a call

Spread

During a surge in popularity of Undertale in 2018, the song inspired numerous fan-made animations. On August 4th, 2018, YouTuber^[2] Kitzophrenic posted an animation that received over 2.7 million views in five years (shown below, left). On December 17th, YouTuber^[3] EnchantedMob posted a 3D animation that garnered over 34 million views in the same period (shown below, right).

The song has been referenced in memes at least as early as April 2021. On April 12th, 2021, Redditor NoAltBruh posted a Hiding From a Serial Killer meme that received over 2,200 upvotes in the /r/Undertale^[4] subreddit in six months (shown below, left). On July 2nd, Redditor LordzFox posted a
What Do You Think He's Listening To? meme that received over 4,200 upvotes in the subreddit in the same period (shown below, right).

The opening lyric from the song has also been used as source material for memes. For example, on May 15th, 2021, YouTuber^[5] hypertheweirdo posted a Nerd vs. Geek meme that received over 1.2 million views in two years (shown below).

Welcome to the Underground, Show Us Your Balls

Welcome to the Underground, Give Us Your Balls refers to a viral Undertale animation in which the characters Papyrus and Sans sing a parody version of "To the Bone", with Sans singing, "How are your balls?" and "Give us your balls." The animation was posted by YouTuber^[6] SilentManJoe in September 2021 and inspired several other animations using the same audio over the following months on YouTube and TikTok.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References