DEVO - “Uncontrollable Urge (Live)”, “Going Under”, “Peek A Bo

October 3rd, 2005 by Dave Clifford

Devo will forever be one of my all-time favorite bands. But, for reasons more significant than their innovative and infectious music alone. In fact, Devo was the foundation of my grad school thesis based upon the notion of pop culture subversion. Like the Beatles (who were obviously far more successful at rallying the zeitgeist of a naive youth culture to make massive changes), Devo dramatically impacted and changed our culture en-mass by knowing the only way to deliver a message that’s truly meaningful is to express it ways that are utterly beyond meaning. That is, Devo’s lyricists Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale managed to write songs that sounded as lyrically pedestrian as all other contemporary pop

music, but which spoke a message far more surreptitious and revolutionary. That’s a tough task, to pass the LCD bean-counters of the major labels (in the pre-Nirvana early-80s mind you.) Nonetheless, Devo had at least one hit album. Unfortunately, very few listeners were actually thinking and interpreting in the way that the band had hoped. Cynical songs like "Freedom of Choice" being about our own psychosocial deception and "Whip It" being about our sado-masochistic need to control and be controlled were taken as literal anthems. Regardless, a band of nerds from Akron, OH taking their name in celebratory/mockery of a bizarre pseudo-science book written by a presumed Nazi-in-hiding German ex-pat broke into the Top 10. That’s impressive by any stretch of the imagination.

But, perhaps what I also admire about Devo was that the band has never quite acquired "hip" status amongst the indie-rock elite (i.e. those who’ve essentially inherited their neo-hippie luddite, anti-corporate, trust-funded and outmoded values from dear old dad, not dada.) Devo were true overmen — they joined and even embraced the system that they despised and subsequently transcended it by outwitting the shills who ran the business. All that without ever needing to play the tired role of angry rebels.

I’ll shut up for now and let these songs speak for themselves. But, suffice to say, I think each song has a radically significant message that speaks beyond simplistic "left or right" political values, or whatever other anarcho-radical adolescent fantasies might be floating out there in the ether that you might require from music. Don’t ask what the songs are about. You might get what they were thinking, or you might think something on your own, either way, the point is made. Devo only supplies the color for the palette. The painting is yours to create.

This version of "Uncontrollable Urge" is a live recording from May 1977 at Max’s Kansas City in NYC that’s much faster and more energized than the album version. "Going Under" (click here for lyrics) is a sinister song about various types of seduction from their 1981 New Traditionalists album. "Peek A Boo" is from their 1982 album Oh No! It’s Devo.