My 1981 DEVO mystery song found! (A story)
Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 7:24 pmThanks to a thread here on the NWO, I have finally found my 1981 Devo mystery song. I've been searching all this time for this song, (although not very hard).
The year was 1981 and I was living in the little college town of La Verne, CA. I started hanging out at a pizza joint downtown called Warehouse Pizza. It was a typical pizza joint full of jocks and families, but they had a jukebox and every time I went in there this one song would play. After a few visits I really got into this song so I went over to the jukebox to find out who it was and much to my surprise it was Devo! I had never heard this song before and I listened to KROQ religiously and I owned all the Devo albums, but this song was completely new to me.
So from then on every time I went in there if I didn't hear the song I would play the song. This Devo song was a huge hit in this little pizza joint. After a while I stopped hanging out there but I never forgot about this song. I knew it was the B side of a Devo 45 but I didn't remember the name of the song or what the A side was. All I remembered was that I loved the main chord riff and that the vocals didn’t really grab me, but they fit the song. I didn't remember any of the lyrics or the melody.
So I'm perusing this thread: http://www.nwoutpost.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3473 and I decide to go to Rhino Records and purchase some of the CDs mentioned in the thread. And while there I buy the Rhino Handmade limited-edition Devo CD “Recombo DNA”. And lo and behold I find my song.
It's called, “Turn Around”.
A quick visit to GEMM reveals it’s the B side of “Girl U Want” and "Whip It". According to the “Recombo DNA” CD book it was left off the “Freedom Of Choice” album and used as a B side. Listening to it again now, I think the song holds up well and would have been a welcome addition to the “Freedom Of Choice” album. But now I have to quit listening to the “Recombo DNA” version of “Turn Around” because it's the alternate version and I don't want a stamp my mind with the wrong version of the song. So now I have to order the 7” and listen to that, since I don’t think the original version is on any other Devo CD’s. (Devo needs a B side collection!)
Anyway, that’s my story/find of the day… one mystery song found and and there’s many more to go.
The year was 1981 and I was living in the little college town of La Verne, CA. I started hanging out at a pizza joint downtown called Warehouse Pizza. It was a typical pizza joint full of jocks and families, but they had a jukebox and every time I went in there this one song would play. After a few visits I really got into this song so I went over to the jukebox to find out who it was and much to my surprise it was Devo! I had never heard this song before and I listened to KROQ religiously and I owned all the Devo albums, but this song was completely new to me.
So from then on every time I went in there if I didn't hear the song I would play the song. This Devo song was a huge hit in this little pizza joint. After a while I stopped hanging out there but I never forgot about this song. I knew it was the B side of a Devo 45 but I didn't remember the name of the song or what the A side was. All I remembered was that I loved the main chord riff and that the vocals didn’t really grab me, but they fit the song. I didn't remember any of the lyrics or the melody.
So I'm perusing this thread: http://www.nwoutpost.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3473 and I decide to go to Rhino Records and purchase some of the CDs mentioned in the thread. And while there I buy the Rhino Handmade limited-edition Devo CD “Recombo DNA”. And lo and behold I find my song.
It's called, “Turn Around”.
A quick visit to GEMM reveals it’s the B side of “Girl U Want” and "Whip It". According to the “Recombo DNA” CD book it was left off the “Freedom Of Choice” album and used as a B side. Listening to it again now, I think the song holds up well and would have been a welcome addition to the “Freedom Of Choice” album. But now I have to quit listening to the “Recombo DNA” version of “Turn Around” because it's the alternate version and I don't want a stamp my mind with the wrong version of the song. So now I have to order the 7” and listen to that, since I don’t think the original version is on any other Devo CD’s. (Devo needs a B side collection!)
Anyway, that’s my story/find of the day… one mystery song found and and there’s many more to go.