Uno, Dos, One, Two, Tres, Quatro!

If you've ever read Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn (and if you haven't, you should; it's really good), I trust you'll remember the novel's Tourette's Syndrome-afflicted narrator, Lionel Essrog, and his manifold hilarious and obscene verbal tics. Essrog's most frequently-dropped linguistic compulsion involved constantly berating an imaginary narrator named Bailey; he explains to the reader that, when pressed for something to do, he cannot help but shout libelous and derogatory remarks against the imaginary Bailey.

I have long been of the belief that the impulse to write is actually an undiagnosed cognitive disorder based upon an unhealthy preoccupation with the English language. I tend to fall passionately in love with particularly whimsical words, phrases or proper nouns ("knickerbocker"; "horses for courses"; "Mick Jagger"), which run through my head as nauseum when Rhianna's "Umbrella" and "Ready to Go" by Republica recede for a moment. That being said, my "Bailey" is definitely "Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs". I know, I'm probably crazy, but I'm also not kidding- I've had those six words stuck in my head since the sixth grade, or possibly age six. I actually spent most of my university education staving off the impulse to respond to the question "Who is the CEO of Hewlett-Packard?" with an exuberant "Sam the Sham!" Has there ever been a more fun-to-say band name in the history of time? Have six words ever coalesced so brilliantly as those? Am I an ideal candidate for lobotomization? Yes, yes and probably.

If you are a regular No Good For Me reader, you've most likely noticed that I'm a bit of a sixties-o-phile (unless you only check the blog to catch wind of sample sales and Target news, that is, and if so- shame on you! You have no idea what you're missing). I listen to sixties music with such undying regularity that I've at this point entirely lost touch with what music that wasn't made in the sixties sounds like; I mean, my ear has adapted so completely to jangly guitars, newspaper taxis and the Wall of Sound that I've lost the ability to examine sixties pop with any sort of contextual positioning or nostalgia whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs are the hottest new band of '08 (besides Ver Sacrum, I mean).

A couple of days ago, I was walking down the street, skipping like an idiot and freaking out in my head to Sam the Sham's "Wooly Bully". I am one of those incredibly annoying people who refuses to listen to entire albums, instead insisting on listening to the same cloying hooky gems over and over and over forever. I mean, really, though- what's the point of listening to some phoned-in adaptation of "Long Tall Sally" when you can surround yourself with the magnetic energy of "Wooly Bully"? In addition to being vaguely Tourettic, trapped in the past, and really narrow-minded when it comes to B-sides, I'm also a really neurotic person. One of my favorite things to stress out about is the fading relevance of the Beatles. There is nothing more terrifying to me than the possibility that the Internetty cyber-losers of my children's generation (just kidding, I'm never having kids) will not know George Harrison's name. And that their children won't know John Lennon's name! It just makes me want to cry.

If John Lennon is poised to soon be forgotten, Sam the Sham's name and legacy will be lost to time by the end of this year, no doubt. Loving the sixties as I do, I can't help but attach to myself the responsibility of archiving and documenting the music of the coolest decade the world ever knew. I really wish I could have lived in a world where a flipped-out Tejano could dress himself up as an exaggerated and bedazzled Pharaoh and put out a scalding jammer written primarily in gobbledygook telling the story of a fictional Yeti-type creature named Wooly Bully. But unfortunately for me, I was born in dumb 1985, though at the very least the cartoons of my youth were savvy enough to include Sam the Sham rip-offs as innovative narrative devices.

Here is a clip from Alvin and the Chipmunks proving how effective "Woolly Bully" can be used to connote an atmosphere of primordial jungle Tiki-torch torture:

And here is a link to download the song itself, for you to listen to, revel in, and save for all of time:

Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs- Wooly Bully

PS: I'm sure you've already guessed this, but U2 totally ripped off Sam's rollicking Spanglish count-in in "Vertigo"- watch out, Bono! I'm on to your devious ways!

Posted by Laura in Music
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