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Pop Rock Nation

Author: David Middleton

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #30: Jackboots & Kilt

    Napoleon XIV's 1966 novelty hit, "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!"

    NAPOLEON XIV  “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!”  b/w “Photogenic, Schizophrenic You” (Eric Records #195, early-’80’s reissue.  Originally released on Warner Bros. #5831, Summer 1966)

    When it comes to artistic integrity, few social groups get maligned as much as the mentally challenged.  Even in this enlightened era of advanced education, when extensive research is being done to comprehend such phenomena as autism, terms like “outsider” still separate the layers of our ability to understand the deeper workings of the human brain.  Probably out of fear.  Fear of discovering that, one way or another, we are all outsiders.

    Early rock performers like Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis clearly understood the minds of the mentally challenged.  They knew that there was a little bit of crazy in all of us, that it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, and that all we had to do was just open up and let it out.  Few later rockers understood this better than The Cramps’ late leader, Lux Interior, whose pure joy in performing for mental patients is chronicled in the stunning Live At Napa State Mental Hospital DVD.  “Finally!” you can imagine the patients thinking as they jump around to the band’s pounding, distorted rockabilly, “Music for ME!  Music that speaks to ME!”

    "...to the funny farm..."

    Back in the Summer of ’66, one record ratcheted up the insanity to previously unprecedented levels when 28-year-old New Yorker Jerry Samuels (under the nom-de-straitjacket, Napoleon XIV) recorded a totally batshit spoken-word ode to a misbehaving, runaway pup.  Released on Warner Bros., it sped to the top of the charts thanks to tons of airplay and just plain utter “gotta-hear-it-to-believe-it” ridiculousness.  Behold the psycho-chaotic masterpiece of marching-band drums, helium vocals and ambulance sirens that is, “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!”

    Play \”They\’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!\” by Napoleon XIV

    Not psychotic enough for ya?  Check out the B-side of the original Warners 45, “!aah-aH ,yawA eM ekaT oT gnimoC er’yehT” (which is — you guessed it! — the A-side backwards).

    yalP \”!aah-aH ,yawA eM ekaT oT gnimoC er\’yehT\” yb VIX noelopaN

    Great fun on jukeboxes.  Anyway, my early-’80’s Eric Records (the pre-Rhino Rhino) pressing of ” They’re Coming…” is backed with a later Samuels composition, “Photogenic Schizophrenic You.”  Slightly more melodic and ballad-like than the A-side, “Photo-Schizo” once again employs the device of the narrator blaming the cause of his mental illness on that of another, this time a gorgeous, but of course completely multiplexed, blonde (a stone from which modern gag writers still manage to wring blood).

    Play \”Photogenic, Schizophrenic You\” by Napoleon XIV

    “They’re Coming…” shot to #3 on the Billboard singles chart before insensitivity protests from advocacy groups wiped out the airplay entirely.  Nonplussed, Samuels went on to record two whole albums of nuthouse-inspired novelty tracks for Warners.  These days, like a modern Broadway Danny Rose, he runs the successful Philly-based Jerry Samuels Talent Agency, booking  juggling clowns and one-man-bands into homes for the physically and mentally challenged.  Viva Napoleon!

    NEXT WEEK: I’m not a sailor, I’m the captain.

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #29: Pump Up The Valium

    THEM's classic single, "Gloria"

    THEM  “Gloria” b/w “Baby, Please Don’t Go” (Parrot Records #9727,  1964-65)

    I’m pressed for time, so this installment will have to be brief, but this record doesn’t need a whole lot of words anyway.  We are gathered here today, my friends, to celebrate one of the hands-down greatest, purest rock ‘n’ roll singles of all time:  “Gloria” (also known as “G-L-O-R-I-A!”) by early-’60’s Irish rockers Them.  Written by the band’s singer, a then-unknown young upstart named Van Morrison, this track was actually the B-side of this release, but my Parrot pressing (whether it’s original or not I’m unsure) doesn’t make that distinction.  No matter, let’s just rock.

    Play GLORIA by THEM

    The single hit the Top 100 in ’64 and again in ’65, but it was Chicago garage-rock group The Shadows Of Knight who would bring it into the Top 10 in April of ’66.  Since then it’s become the quintessential rock classic, covered by everyone in the universe.  Learn to play the E, D & A chords on the guitar, and you can cover it too.

    Play BABY, PLEASE DON\’T GO by THEM

    The B-side, which is really the A-side, is Them’s blistering take on Joe Williams’ blues classic, “Baby, Please Don’t Go.”  Also revered as a rock staple and also covered zillions of times, always using Them’s arrangement.  B’cause, as the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke — don’t fix it.

    Them released a handful of great singles and albums, and had a couple brilliant Top 40 hits stateside with “Here Comes The Night” and “Mystic Eyes.”  After Morrison left to pursue a solo career in ’66, the band attempted to soldier on without him, to no avail.  And, as everyone knows, Van Morrison’s solo career never amounted to much.

    NEXT WEEK: Ho ho!  Ha-haa!  He-hee!

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #28: No More Mr. & Mrs. Nice Guy & Gal

    Warren Zevon's classic single "Werewolves Of London"

    WARREN ZEVON  “Werewolves Of London” b/w “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner”  (Asylum Records #45472, April 1978)

    A key feature in my hometown Sunday paper was a little syndicated column that published the lyrics and musical accompaniment to a current popular song.  I clipped it every week, even if it was a song I didn’t necessarily like (the ability to take requests always comes in handy, right?), and kept a little musical scrapbook.  One week in ’78, the featured tune was none other than THEE most badass song ever written, Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves Of London.”

    See the video for Werewolves Of London by Warren Zevon

    Zevon, who got his first big break in the music business playing piano behind The Everly Brothers, recalls the song’s origin in the liner notes to his 1995 anthology, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead:  “Phil Everly said, “I’m making another solo album.  Why don’t you guys write a song for me — a dance song.  Call it, ‘Werewolves Of London.’ “  I was at LeRoy (Marinell)’s house a few days later, and he was playing that little V-IV-I figure when (guitarist) Waddy (Wachtel) walked in.  “What are you doing?” he asked, and we answered, “We’re doing the Werewolves Of London.”  Waddy said, “You mean, Ahhooo — those Werewolves Of London?””  And obviously, the rest is history.

    I'll Sleep When I'm Dead  

    Of course, from the perspective a young kid growing up on a steady diet of Dr. Madblood’s Movie, Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine and 3-D triple-features at The Suburban, nothing could be cooler than this 3-chord D/C/G stomper, with drums & bass provided by Fleetwood Mac’s rhythm section and lyrics like, “Little old lady got mutilated late last night.”  Anyone who could push a track like this into the Top 40 was my hero, and so Zevon remained until his untimely death from lung cancer in 2003.

    The Jackson Browne-produced track spent 6 weeks in the Top 40, peaking at #21.  It has since become a ubiquitous classic, popping up in hit films and being either sampled or covered by nearly everyone under the sun.  And of course the rock and oldies stations still crank it up once in a while, most notably on Halloween. 

    See Warren Zevon perform Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner

    Again from Zevon himself:  “In 1974 I ran off to Spain and got a job in an Irish bar called the Dubliner, in Sitges, on the Costa Brava.  The proprietor was a piratical ex-merc named David Lindell.  He and I wrote this song at the bar one afternoon, over many jars.” 

    Enjoy Every Sandwich  

    Sucked into the Irvingesqe mythology of this B-side’s fictional title character, I borrowed my older brother’s copy of Excitable Boy to see what other great gems lay waiting.  I listened in amazement as the LP swung from the caustic title track (a meditation on rehab more disturbing than “Alice’s Restaurant”) to the broken-hearted sorrow of “Accidentally Like A Martyr,” hitting all points in between.  Zevon’s songs, sometimes built around narratives resembling miniature noir films, proved to be the kind that you could enjoy in the moment, and appreciate further as time passed.  A rare find in the pop world. 

    Over the ensuing years, Zevon scored many points both high and low, and though he never managed “Werewolves…”-caliber chart success again, he left behind probably one of the most challenging, beautiful, and brutally honest song catalogs in American history.

    NEXT WEEK:  Gee, El…Oh, are eye!  Eh?