I mean, seriously, this song is pretty messed up.
Oh, sure, I know there are weirder songs. But a weirder POPULAR song, a song that charted and is well known and in rotation on radio stations to this day? I do not think so. “Rock Lobster” may as well be titled “Holy Flurkin’ Christ, We Sure Are On A Lot Of Drugs.”
What’s so weird about singing about a beach picnic?
The lyrics to pretty much any R. Kelly song are just as bizarre but in an entirely different context. Look up R. Kelly’s “In the Kitchen” - this song is to sex and dining as “Rock Lobster” is to picnics at the beach. R. Kelly’s production (much of it cooked up by Kanye West back before he ventured out solo) is also defiantly weird, full of odd sounds and plodding, asymmetric rhythms. An argument could be made that taken in total, R. Kelly’s music and career is as weird as it gets. Have you ever seen/heard “Trapped in the Closet” in its entirety?
But it’s true that there are few weirder songs than “Rock Lobster” given your criteria, and there are few more weird bands (receiving the kind of mainstream attention) than The B-52s.
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
In terms of weird hit songs, Napoleon XIV is right up there for all-time honors:
*You thought it was a joke and so you laughed, you LAUGHED when I had said
that losing you would make me flip my lid… RIGHT???
I know you laughed, I heard you laugh, you laughed you laughed and
laughed and then you left, but now you know I’m utterly mad… And…
They’re coming to take me away, ha-haaa,
They’re coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-haaa
To the happy home. With trees and flowers and chirping birds and basket
weavers who sit and smile and twiddle their thumbs and toes and they’re
coming to take me away, ha-haaa!!!*
Nope, nothing odd about that. :dubious:
Pass the tanning butter.
It may not be the weirdest song on the first B-52s album, compared to Planet Claire:
“Planet Claire has pink air
All the trees are red
No one ever dies there
No one has a head”
All sung over a Peter Gunn riff. Or Dance This Mess Around:
“Oh won’t you dance with me?
I’m not the Limburger!”
Over this very sludgy sounding guitar. I do think Rock Lobster is a great song and the best one on the album.
MacArthur Park for the win.
I submit the Beatles’ “Come Together.”
Seriously, old flat-top has a joo-joo eyeball, a toe-jam football, a monkey finger and a walrus gumboot all apparently run through a mojo filter? Indeed, if he held you in his armchair, you could feel his disease!
Sparks’ ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us’ is hands down a weirder popular song in regular rotation (and a British #2 smash hit at that)
It makes more sense when it was originally written in support of Timothy Leary’s bid for the governorship of California, and had the lyrics reworked after his legal troubles quashed that dream.
I submit Barnes and Barnes’ Fish Heads, or the Residents’ Hello Skinny. (I remember when these were popular.)
how about?
even a “cha cha cha” at the end
I submit many Yes songs, “The Preacher The Teacher” is one of the oddest.
Here is how it opens:
Sad preacher nailed upon the coloured door of time;
Insane teacher be there reminded of the rhyme.
There’ll be no mutant enemy we shall certify;
Political ends, as sad remains, will die.
Reach out as forward tastes begin to enter you.
the often-covered
Istanbul, not Constantinople.
or how about the GREAT Arthur “FIRE” Brown
I always thought “Tusk” by Fleetwood Mac was a weird song
Title of the song would be “And You And I.”
Well yes, but it is broken into four parts and part III is titled: III. The Preacher The Teacher
I now know (actually noticed a number of years ago) where Joss Whedon got that…
Would make for an interesting thread-names of things (TV shows, albums, movies) borrowed from earlier such art works.