Was (Not Was)-"Dad, I'm In Jail"?--c/d?

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It's like "Rebel Without A Cause" meets Dan Clowes meets John Lurie!

― adaml (adaml), Monday, 13 October 2003 04:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Or is it?

― adaml (adaml), Monday, 13 October 2003 04:34 (twenty-three years ago)

I think he's in jail for doing the dinosaur.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 13 October 2003 04:36 (twenty-three years ago)

"i like it here" always cracks me up

― gaz (gaz), Monday, 13 October 2003 04:38 (twenty-three years ago)

dammit gaz beat me!

classic, of course.

― Little Big Macher (llamasfur), Monday, 13 October 2003 05:04 (twenty-three years ago)

'Are you Ok?' is pretty good

― scottjames23 (worrysome-man), Monday, 13 October 2003 06:24 (twenty-three years ago)

must be classic because it's in my head all the time. I hate every other was (not was) song I ever heard though but maybe at the time I just didn't "get it".

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Monday, 13 October 2003 06:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic! The snarly emphasis especially. "Hello *DAD*, I'm in *JAIL*!! I LIKE it here!"

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 13 October 2003 06:35 (twenty-three years ago)

I liked the lines "I LIKE IT HERE, IT'S NICE!!!" and "HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM JAIL"

Then I played it again and found neither were there.....

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 13 October 2003 08:10 (twenty-three years ago)

totally classic.
I also like the way he emphasize the word

― Jens (brighter), Monday, 13 October 2003 11:14 (twenty-three years ago)

classic for being in Pump up the volume, at a very good point of it too

― chris (chris), Monday, 13 October 2003 11:21 (twenty-three years ago)

I just had a conversation with my mom about this song yesterday. She said something like "if you ever have to call me from jail, at least say it like they do in that song and make me laugh".

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 13 October 2003 11:43 (twenty-three years ago)

"Say hi to MOM. From JAIL!"

My mom loves that line, too.

― Phil Freeman (Phil Freeman), Monday, 13 October 2003 12:15 (twenty-three years ago)

This song is fantastic.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 13 October 2003 12:22 (twenty-three years ago)

I used to love that Was (Not Was) album that this is on. It doesn't have Walk the Dinosaur but it does have their pointless cover of Papa was a Rolling Stone. I can't even remember the other songs. To allmusic.com I go...

― NA (Nick A.), Monday, 13 October 2003 14:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Having not heard this in years, the vocals sound like gremlins to me. In fact, i sounds like satanic gremlins carrying out deranged worhip and death threats to their parents. From jail. Ipso facto ergo therefore, classique. The 'Papa...' cover was wack.

― Barima (Barima), Monday, 13 October 2003 14:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah. And my memory is broken, Walk the Dinosaur and Hello Dad... are on the same album, while Papa was... is on an earlier album.

― NA (Nick A.), Monday, 13 October 2003 14:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Earth to DORIS!

― dave225 (Dave225), Monday, 13 October 2003 14:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Walk the Dinosaur and Hello Dad = "What up, dog" - cool album.
Rolling stone = "are you OK" snooz.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 13 October 2003 14:14 (twenty-three years ago)

there's no better song
to end side A of mixtapes
than this awesome song

(unless it's torme
singing 'zaz turned blue', that's good
but just for side B)

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Monday, 13 October 2003 14:22 (twenty-three years ago)

Weird, my parents had the one tape and all 3 songs were on it (to NA). This was how we whiled away the London - Oxford drive to my old school. Made me miss the old 'Private Dancer' car tape days.

― Barima (Barima), Monday, 13 October 2003 14:37 (twenty-three years ago)

But I think I still love 'Shake Your Head', which I got on vinyl over the summer. Did Kim B just mime the vocals or actually perform 'em?

― Barima (Barima), Monday, 13 October 2003 14:38 (twenty-three years ago)

I actually put *Born to Laugh at Tornadoes* in my top ten in 1983, but I haven't heard it for years. The later dino and jail novelties still strike me as pretty forced (just like they did when they came out), but it's been a while since I heard them, too, so who knows? Only album I still own is the first one, which is to say the great one, the funky one, the truly weird one -- Have kids who grew up in the '80s and '90s ever even *heard* "Out Come the Freaks" (big hit on Electrifyin' Mojo's midnight funk association WGPR show circa 1981), much less their even better pre-debut-album single "Wheel Me Out" (which was available on that old Ze compilation *Seize Ze Beat,* and I assume was on one or more reissue comp in the past couple years)?

― chuck, Monday, 13 October 2003 17:56 (twenty-three years ago)

I also used to like Sweet Pea Atkinson's solo album, by the way.

(But didn't Ozzy Osbourne sing "Shake Your Head"? Or did I misunderstand that post?)

― chuck, Monday, 13 October 2003 18:01 (twenty-three years ago)

A pal played this song for me a couple yeras ago. It's a good laugh. The only Was Not Was songs I actually know from my youth are Walk The Dinosaur and Spy In The House Of Love or somethin' like that. Oh, and some members appeared in Bonnie Raitt's video for Love Letter. Only reason I know that is my parents wouldn't let me watch MTV when they were home so I got well-versed in late '80s VH1 material.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 13 October 2003 18:04 (twenty-three years ago)

(big hit on Electrifyin' Mojo's midnight funk association WGPR show circa 1981)

I believe this was how I first heard the three magic Was (Not Was) singles ("Out Come the Freaks," "Tell Me That I'm Dreaming," "Wheel Me Out"), though I didn't become a card-carrying MFA member until Mojo went over to WJLB.

― Andy K (Andy K), Monday, 13 October 2003 18:09 (twenty-three years ago)

chuck remembers right,
ozzy rapped on 'shake yr head'--
timba collab due?

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Monday, 13 October 2003 18:39 (twenty-three years ago)

I always liked The Sky's Ablaze: "The sky's ablaze with lady's legs, he said, they're kicking from the clouds. They splat like eggs..."

Top marks also for gonzo vocalist choices (Leonard Cohen & Frank Sinatra Jr...)

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Monday, 13 October 2003 18:55 (twenty-three years ago)

I really like "Born to Laugh at Tornadoes," especially "Knocked Down, Made Small (Treated Like a rubber Ball)."

― J (Jay), Monday, 13 October 2003 19:25 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah, thats the guy from the knack singing there, isn't it?

― gaz (gaz), Monday, 13 October 2003 21:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Clearly their best work.

― brian nemtusak (sanlazaro), Monday, 13 October 2003 23:12 (twenty-three years ago)

I read the sleeve of NOW...23, which described 'Shake Your Head' as a featuring "an unlikely vocal pairing between Kim Basinger and Ozzy Osbourne" and thought, "Yeah, I'll probably still love this". Besides, the 'You can't write your name in MUD!/And you can't deny bad blood' rhyme and that keyboard riff after the chorus were undeniable, I tell ya.

― Barima (Barima), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 10:27 (twenty-three years ago)

aces !

the best of was called 'hello dad i'm in jail' too wasn't it ?
yeah 'shake your head' = ace. there was a song called 'out come
the freaks' on every album wasn't there ?

once on danny baker's virgin show they had a comp to find the best
song title evah, and it was awarded to
'somewhere in america there's a street named after my dad'.

my fave song, but not title wise is
'i feel better than james brown' the video was great too.

which was the 80's album that began the attack of everybody wanting
to work with the was's as producers ? was it 'cosmic thing'.
hats very much off to them anyway.

― piscesboy, Tuesday, 14 October 2003 12:49 (twenty-three years ago)

(But didn't Ozzy Osbourne sing "Shake Your Head"? Or did I misunderstand that post?)

He did and I think it was his biggest UK hit, apart from Paranoid.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 12:55 (twenty-three years ago)

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