# rock songs with oddball instruments **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 19, 2001, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983 "2001-08-19T04:19:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![nineiron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e56c9b/32.png) [@nineiron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nineiron)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/81 "2001-08-21T11:16:14Z")
“Theremin”! I always wondered what that thing was called where Jimmy Page moves his hand near the antenna in the live version of “Whole Lotta Love.” I didn’t know it was a formal instrument. Cool. And yes, “Hocus Pocus” contains some fine yodelin’, as well as some awesome rock guitar. Several years ago, a friend of mine bought a Focus CD based on the one song. Boy, was he disappointed, as the rest of the album was what you might call “classical” guitar. Well played, but certainly not the rock he was looking for. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Bitterdrunk\_Kid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/278dde/32.png) [@The\_Bitterdrunk\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Bitterdrunk_Kid)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/82 "2001-08-21T20:46:54Z")
On the song ‘Big Bad John’ by Jimmy Dean, pianist Floyd Cramer played a weight used to hold television cameras steady suspended from a coatrack. He hit it with a hammer in time with the music to make that “ping” sound you hear in it. On ‘All Shook Up’ by Elvis, the percussion was provided by Elvis tapping on the back of his guitar while singing. ---
**Author:** ![demanton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@demanton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/demanton)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/83 "2001-08-21T21:31:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sewalk \* > \*\*The “hairdryer” sound in “Panama” is actually Ed’s Lamborghini, backed into the 5150 studio with Ed racing the engine. That has to be the most expensive instrument ever used in a studio. > > While the instrument in “Intruder” is a guitar, the effect from rubbing a beer can up and down the strings was pretty bizarre and was a lot more original (IMHO) than Jimmy Page’s use of a bow on his guitar. \*\* Edward also double-tracked the solo in “Ain’t Talkin’ 'Bout Love”, playing the first track on guitar and then duplicating the riff on a sitar. He also scraped the tremolo springs on the back of the guitar for some of the “Intruder” effects. Oh yeah, that noise that leads in to “Runnin’ With The Devil”? All of the band members removed the horns from their cars and hooked them up to a battery in the studio. They recorded the noise of all of them sounding at once and then slowed down the playback right at the end. ---
**Author:** ![postcards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8e8cbc/32.png) [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/84 "2001-08-21T22:27:51Z")
Elton John also used a harpsichord, notably on _Skyline Pigeon_. My favorite non-instument is the typewriter. On the original recording of ‘Chess’ the typewriter was used on the song ‘Embassy Lament’ The Lovin’ Spoonful , I think, used one as well, but I can’t recall what. ---
**Author:** ![Eutychus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/85 "2001-08-21T22:36:58Z")
**Roy Wood** used a toilet plunger as a backup rhythm instrument in _Wake Up_ from the “Boulders” album. ---
**Author:** ![Mobius74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@Mobius74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mobius74)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/86 "2001-08-22T00:49:44Z")
Well, it isn’t ROCK, but if you’re looking for weird instruments, you need look no further than **P.D.Q. Bach** featuring, among other things, such oddities as a bicycle, the “mailing tuba”, and a horrific hybrid known as a **tromboon** - an instrument that combines all the worst properties of both the trombone and bassoon… I highly recommend P.D.Q. Bach for any who are looking for comedy of a _truely_ different sort… ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/87 "2001-08-22T01:59:44Z")
On “In My Life” Martin played a piano, not a harpsichord. “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” is the only rock song I ever heard of that features a solo bassoon. Piledriver did a nasty song featuring the sound of a guillotine. “We’re the Metal Inquisition We sentence you to death … \ \ …By guillotine!” ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/88 "2001-08-24T11:52:26Z")
The use of a typewriter as rhythm instrument was first pioneered by novelty composer Leroy Anderson in his tone poem “The Typewriter” back in the 1930s. The first composer to incorporate recorded sound into a piece of music was Ottorino Respighi in the 1920s. In “The Pines of Rome” (the section titled “The Pines of the Appian Way”), he scored a phonograph recording of a nightingale. When I saw an orchestra performing this on TV, the phonograph operator lowered the needle onto the record on an old Victrola—with the huge trumpet speaker. Talk about “authentic period instruments”! ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/89 "2001-08-24T13:37:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by audient \* > \*\*Hometownboy - feedback on Ticket to Ride? are you maybe thinking of the intro to I Feel Fine? \*\* By golly, every time I get to feeling smartass about my rock trivia knowledge, I blow something so freakin’ simple I wonder just how many brain cells I damaged back in the 60s. My thanks to you and **pldennison** for the gentleness of your corrections when a flame would have been richly deserved. ::hides head in shame, runs off to listen to his Beatles #1 CD again:: ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/90 "2001-08-24T14:01:27Z")
**Darling Violetta,** the group that recorded the theme song to _Angel,_ has the cello player as a regular part of their group; it wasn’t just for the theme song. ---
**Author:** ![audient](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@audient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audient)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/91 "2001-08-24T14:36:57Z")
no prob **hometownboy**. I fell in the same pit thinking In My Life had harpsichord. Thanks for that correction, **Jomo**. I always remember that part as a harpsichord (and played it with harpsichord sound in my beatles band). Perhaps it’s the screwy tone from being speed doubled, combined with the baroque nature of it. Whatever, it sounds totally appropriate on harpsichord. [namedrop alert] I tried to get the bass player from the band to razz Sir George about playing at half speed when he’d visited Martin at home in England, but he’d have none of it. coward [/namedrop] ---
**Author:** ![thermalribbon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@thermalribbon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thermalribbon)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/92 "2001-08-24T14:46:51Z")
Didn’t some jackoff use a chainsaw on a heavy metal record recently. I seem to remember that guy nearly lopping his leg off performing that song live a few years back. This gets my vote for biggest douce-bag in the history of rock ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/93 "2001-08-24T16:24:07Z")
The banjo on The Who’s _Squeeze Box_ The “jew’s harp imitating” clavinet on The Band’s _Up on Cripple Creek_ The slide whistle (and God knows what else) on Bob Dylan’s _Rainy Day Women #12 and 35_ ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/94 "2001-08-24T16:28:05Z")
Oh, and how could I forget the hi-hat and cardboard box with foot pedal on Jackson Browne’s _Nothing But Time_? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/95 "2001-08-24T16:29:52Z")
No, **audient** , you’re right, that tune should have had a harpsichord. It would have sounded exactly right since Martin played it in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach. But don’t get on his case for playing it at half speed. Doing that and then doubling the tape speed achieved an unusual sonority that you would never hear on a piano otherwise. It most closely resembled the sound of the early 18th-century _fortepiano_ invented by Cristofori—it had that delicate tinkly sound because cast-iron sounding boards for the piano were not invented until Beethoven’s time by Broadwood & Sons, allowing far more tension to be put on the strings, making for a heavier, fuller, more brilliant tone. Beethoven helped push piano technology forward because he insisted on the bigger sound for the kind of pieces he was composed. 18th-century little _fortepiano_s were closer to the harpsichord in sonority than to the big huge hairy Steinway concert grands of today. ---
**Author:** ![audient](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@audient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audient)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/96 "2001-08-24T21:17:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > \*\*No, **audient** , you’re right, that tune should have had a harpsichord. It would have sounded exactly right since Martin played it in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach. But don’t get on his case for playing it at half speed. Doing that and then doubling the tape speed achieved an unusual sonority that you would never hear on a piano otherwise. \*\* but are you saying you think Sir George did the speed doubling _because of_ the timbre change? I’ve always thought of it as an apropos artifact. i agree it shoulda had a harpsichord. so if i can’t criticize their laziness for playing it half speed, i’ll just complain they were too lazy to wheel in a harpsichord. they could have afforded it : ) > [@](#): > > \*also from Jomo Mojo \* > \*\* > It most closely resembled the sound of the early 18th-century _fortepiano_ invented by Cristofori—it had that delicate tinkly sound because cast-iron sounding boards for the piano were not invented until Beethoven’s time by Broadwood & Sons, allowing far more tension to be put on the strings, making for a heavier, fuller, more brilliant tone. Beethoven helped push piano technology forward because he insisted on the bigger sound for the kind of pieces he was composed. 18th-century little _fortepiano_s were closer to the harpsichord in sonority than to the big huge hairy Steinway concert grands of today. \*\* and well well, if we’re going to talk piano tech, perhaps we should open up a whole new thread. : ) [hijack] i’ll nitpick your otherwise excellent historical summary to point out that it’s not a cast iron _sounding board_, as you probably know. Of course the soundboards have always been wood, it’s the cast iron _plate_ which is essentially the skeleton of the piano holding the 18 tons of tension on a modern grand. And even that is only possible because it’s bolted to the strong laminated wood outer case. [/major hijack - what was topic about?] ---
**Author:** ![Dijon\_Warlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9a28c/32.png) [@Dijon\_Warlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dijon_Warlock)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/97 "2001-08-24T23:19:57Z")
“The Magician’s Birthday” by Uriah Heep had kazoos…referred to in the song as the Orchid Orchestra. ---
**Author:** ![warmgun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecccb3/32.png) [@warmgun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/warmgun)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/98 "2001-08-25T02:02:30Z")
Harmonica: Not really so much of a rock oddity except it was the _dominant_ instrument in 'Whammer Jammer", by J. Geils Band. Easily the kick-assenest harp solo ever. Harry Neilson used a gargle (then spit into a glass) in one of his songs. ‘The Most Beautiful World in the World’? Great banjo solo on '16 Dead roses and a Horse that stinks" - Jim Stafford Dijon just beat me with Uriah Heep. And I looooved ‘Don’t Call Us/WCY’. ElvisL1ves, are you sure that was cardboard? Sounds like sheet-metal to me… And, yeah, not really rock, but _somebody_ should mention Spike Jones. Cause not only did he use weird things for music, he was DAMN good at it! I’m thinking of one song where he used a gunshot very effectively. ---
**Author:** ![nineiron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e56c9b/32.png) [@nineiron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nineiron)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/99 "2001-08-25T02:29:25Z")
OK, two or three people have mentioned the chainsaw solo now (by Jackal, or do they spell it Jackyl?–I’m too lazy to find out). Please see the original post. It was pretty cool, though, and it fit in with the content of the song. ---
**Author:** ![jabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/db5fbb/32.png) [@jabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabe)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983/100 "2001-08-25T02:29:32Z")
Jon Fishman from Phish plays an Electrolux Vacuum, but nineiron already mentioned that. Hey nineiron, did you have a good time at that concert? peace, JB (13 Phish shows) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-songs-with-oddball-instruments/76983.md?page=6)