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EDITOR’s RECOMMENDATION July 2000
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Collection: The Very Worst of Spike Jones (1911-1965)
NIMBUS NI 2003
[62:29]
Crotchet
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Love in Bloom. William Tell Overture. The Charleston. Cocktails for Two.
That Old Black Magic. The Blue Danube. Liebestraum. Drip Drip Drip (Sloppy
Lagoon). My Old Flame. McNamara's Band. The Glow Worm. Chloe. Holiday for
Strings. You always hurt the one you love. Dance of the Hours. Luara. Hawaiian
War Chant. Knock Knock (Who's There). All I want for Christmas. Happy New
Year.
When I was a young boy, in the late 1940s, with two teenage female cousins
perpetually swooning over Dick Haymes and Bing Crosby, I used to relish spiting
them by playing Spike Jones's anarchic Cocktails for Two and You
Always Hurt the One You Love at full blast.
Spike with his gang of lyrical and light classics terrorists were let loose
around that time, and were often heard as an antidote to all the saccharine
on BBC record requests programmes like Forces Favourites. This, 'The
Very Worst of Spike Jones' is a collection of 20 of his marvellous missiles
recorded between 1945 and 1949.
Spike used a battery of seemingly innocuous percussion devices such as temple
blocks, cow bells, washboards, bell trees, swanee whistles, bird calls, gongs,
cymbals and even hard stuff like anvils, hammers, pistols, car horns, police
sirens phone bells, cash registers and such satanic electronic devices as
"the polarised vibrating gong" to explode, even implode innocent tunes. On
this album he damns The Blue Danube, shreds Liebestraum and
devastates the William Tell Overture --before turning it into a horse race.
Innocent lyrics are tortured. Immediately, in Love in Bloom the question
"Can it be the trees?" provokes a cry of "Timber!"; while the line "Is it
all a dream?" is answered by loud snoring. Poor Chloe's name is tortured
("Hi Chloe! - what d'ya knowee?") and the words, "...nightshade's
falling..." heralds unimaginable cacophony. Cocktails for Two's early
lyric "in some secluded rendezvous" is answered by a gross dissonance of
car horns, whistles and general thuds; and, later, you are not spared the
raucous chorus of drunken hiccups. And you really don't want to know what
they do to the melody and words of That Old Black Magic and You
Always Hurt the One You Love.
It seems, at last, that one song will have some due respect. David Raksin's
Laura (yes, that of the film) is played by Spike Jones's other
orchestra - but no! - peace just cannot last and its only a matter of time
before the boys wreak their usual havoc - in spades. Peter Lore, or the aptly
named impressionist Peter Gory, adds a ghoulish touch to My Old Flame.
He contributes such endearing lyrics as - "I can't even think of her
name - I'll have to look through my collection of human heads...my new loves
aren't the same; many of them won't even let me strangle them!"
Coming close to legitimacy, though, is Spike's affectionate recalling of
The Charleston but even here horselaughs and gunshots invade.
Spike appeared in a number of films including Thank Your Lucky Stars
and Variety Girls and had his own TV show. If you have a taste for
irreverence, every one of these cues will have you cheering. Come back Spike,
your slingshots are sorely needed today.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
