Song Roulette
A Vulture series in which artists share the stories and strategy behind their lead singles.
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People thought we were gone, Pierson tells me.
So the executives believed this would be a good announcement that were back with a bang.
And once we get your attention, now well hit you with Love Shack.
A few months later, that funky little tune got its release asCosmic Things second track.
The party never stopped.
Well, until about now.
I cant imagine were going to write another full-length album, Pierson says of the future.
I do hope the B-52s can do some new songs.
As for their previous lead singles, they were all united by one thing: the art of weirdness.
RockLobster,TheB-52s(1979)
.The Song
.
We had a flaming volcano at a Chinese restaurant in Athens.
Before the band started, Keith and Fred sometimes got together and smoked weed.
Fred had this idea for the song.
So Ricky constructed it and Fred put his lyrics into it.
I remember Ricky came in and said, Ive just written the stupidest guitar line.
The rock lobster represents animal rights to Fred.
Hes a staunch vegetarian.
To him, he really thought of saving the lobster.
But at the time it was a play on words.
A little beach-party lobster-blanket bingo.
.The Bet
Danny Beardstarted his record company based on Rock Lobster.
He wanted to help us.
He produced the single and we recorded it in Atlanta.
He stuffed the sleeves with the single and we sent them to Bleecker Bob in New York City.
AndBleecker Bobsaid, I never got them.
.The Payoff
Rock Lobster put us on the map.
It really took off on college radio.
We started getting gigs.
We played at Maxs Kansas City and CBGB.
I remember playing at Hurrah and one night there was a huge line outside.
Ricky looked out the window and said, What are all those people doing down there?
And someone responded, Thats the line to get in for you all.
Thats when it hit me: Word spread and weve really made it.
1 single, but its a classic.
It has a lot of meanings.
It could be the actual location youre in, Get out of that state.
Its a metaphor for your state of mind, which is closed off.
He wasnt particularly thinking about Idaho, but it worked as a rhythm: private eye-daho like private eye.
We were in my little love-shack house in Athens and jamming.
We had all these potatoes.
Fred and I came up with some back-and-forth surrealistic similes about potatoes, pools, and radium.
Its become a catchphrase for someone, somewhere, whos out of touch.
We heard about that so we putthat reference in there.
Theres references to potatoes the eyes, the head, as in potato head.
It doesnt exactly make linear sense, but it has an ominous feel.
Its one of our many disaster songs.
Wild Planetwas an interesting collection of songs.
We knew this was a good lead single.
The record company left us alone to pick what we wanted.
We were so weird, they didnt know how to mess with us.
We had total control over that.
Weve let things happen.
Sometimes I felt like we werent really promoted by the record company.
Again, they left us alone.
We were weird and they didnt quite know how to promote us.
We didnt fall into the punk category.
New wave was a bogus made-up category to catch the second wave of punk.
It was well-received and Private Idaho is an essential part of our live shows.
LegalTender,Whammy!
(1983)
This was the first album where we had to write everything from scratch.
The lyrics were written by our friend Robert Waldrop, who wrote several songs for us.
Its easier when you have lyrics written down.
It was picking and choosing, and perhaps a bit disorganized.
He said, I want to make it about two women counterfeiting in a basement.
He thought,Oh, this is just printing money.
Its disguised as art.
So the two stories came together for him for the lyrics.
The melody wasnt as fun to sing because its almost like a chant.
At the beginning we thought,Well, it doesnt have soaring harmonies.
But the lyrics are fun.
I love the line, See the street pass under your feet by the latest model getaway Jeep.
How prescient is that?
Keith didnt want to just be behind the drums.
He wanted to get out and play some keyboard.
I really didnt like the sound.
I was the one in the band who said, Ugh, I dont know about this change.
But it was very much the sound at the time more electronic.
It was important for us to evolve our sound a little bit.
I missed the real drums.
Our manager discouraged us from doing a music video.
He said, David Byrne is doing a video.
Hes spending all his own money.
Theres no future in it.
Hell lose it all.
The record company gavesuggestions at this point.
We went, Okay, whats this standout here?
What would be a great first single?
Having that music video helped.
That was Legal Tender.
I think its inevitable that with a third album, critics are like, Meh.
Theyre not as enthusiastic as they were about your prior work.
You read one review and it seems like everybody copied that one review.
It wasnt bad, but it seemed like the response to this single wasnt wild enthusiasm.
It was more critical.
So we went back into our little studio to reconvene and attempt to write one.
Ricky was sick and we didnt know what he had, since AIDS had just started.
No one knew what was happening.
There was a lot of fear.
We had never written anything separately.
Everything was always together.
Fred and I were shocked and we didnt understand why.
Ricky didnt say anything and kept up a great front.
He said he was nervous because the record company told us to write a hit.
Cindy and I were working on the lyrics and came up with, Ive been waiting for the man.
It sounds like were doing a drug deal, but we had nothing like that in mind.
It was really just about orange popsicles and lemonade and promoting, feeling, and spreading love.
That psychedelic moment when you feel like the universe is one with you.
In a way it felt political in the face of what was about to happen.
We agreed with the selection.
Despite our quirkiness, we never wrote any songs with the purpose to become a hit.
When the record company said, Write a hit, we were like, Ha, thats ridiculous.
Ricky pretty much recorded everything and was still trying to write a so-called hit when he passed away.
The record company was so difficult this time.
We were in shock, but they assumed we would still tour.
I remember our accountant saying, Get another guitar player.
We were like, Are you kidding?
We couldnt do anything because we were grieving.
We just stopped, but we did do a short promotional tour.
Fred and I tried to promote the record overseas but the record company basically dropped it.
No ones doing anything.
Whats going on here?
They just werent behind it.
Well, we were always political.
All of us are super liberal.
I love Freds line, Politicians pushing dope.
Its a political dance song.
It was weird they reacted that way.
But Channel Z is one song on there thats completely different.
This wasnt what we chose as the single.
The record company said, We should lead with this because its a teaser, dont worry about it.
We responded, Why wouldnt we start with Roam or Love Shack?
Who knows the strategies record companies have.
It alerted people the B-52s were back.
I think the reaction was surprise and joy.
We were nominated for a few Grammys.
As Fred likes to say, werethree-time Grammy losers.
We went around to clubs the first decade we toured, and thenCosmic Thingtook us into arenas.
We were exhausted afterward.
The album was No.
1 in Australia and New Zealand, so we toured the world.
We blew up big.
We thought, Weve got to write something about sex.
Things are simple like that sometimes.
I still giggle at lyrics like, Take me down where the love honey flows.
I knew people would miss her voice.
But I think the song is very good with the exchange between Fred and I.
We wanted people to dance to it.
We chose this one as a band decision.
The record company gave up on trying to influence us.
As I mentioned, we didnt look at the charts or use it to inform our creative decisions.
Ive never thought, Oh, its surprising to me that it became a hit.
Its more what we get from the audiences reaction.
That said, Good Stuff became our third most-popular song.
I found that to be interesting.
Why this one, you know?
It affirmed what we already knew about us.
We were struggling a little bit.
We hadnt written together in awhile.
We kept touring and figured we should finally record something new for the fans.
There were times when we came together betweenGood StuffandFunplexto try and jam, but it didnt work.
All the planets have to align.
We all have to be in the same headspace to jam together.
I remember saying, Lets each be a character in this song.
Fred has a line, Hippie, be quiet, your peace sign T-shirt could cause a riot.
Thats based onthat story.
Its about the modern world.
The mall is a theater of humanity.
We felt like people could relate to this.
I personally thought we should have done Pump as the first single.
It rocked the most and had an incredibly driving beat.
We never even released that one, which was a bit of a bummer.
In retrospect weve all thought Pump might have been better to signify our return.
Now that Im thinking about it, I cant recall the logic that swayed us to Funplex.
We didnt expect this to be a hit at all.
Im not saying our expectations were low and our goals werent high.
The creative endeavor was always the first line of defense.
