9th August 2009

Text

the guess who: the original mash-up artists?

From Almost Famous:

Lester Bangs: The Doors? Jim Morrison? He’s a drunken buffoon…posing as a poet.
Alice Wisdom: I like The Doors.
Lester Bangs: Give me The Guess Who. They’ve got the COURAGE to be drunken buffoons…which makes them poetic.

——

The Guess Who are undoubtedly known best for their phenomenal rock anthem “American Woman.” Or for when Michael Cera sings “These Eyes” in Superbad.

However, my favorite song of theirs is “No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature” from 1970:

Why do I like it so much? It’s two songs in one; the second of which (starting at 2:20) has zero to do with the first, and vice versa. Yet the two wholly unrelated pieces of music are perfectly spliced during the conclusion of the song, at about 3:54.

Every time I hear the song, I wonder about the chain of events that led to this song being made the way it is. I’ve neglected to look into it until now, but just a little reseach led to this explanation:

Guitarist Randy Bachman wrote a short song in the key of F# called “No Sugar Tonight.” When he presented the song to lead singer Burton Cummings and the record company, he was told that the song was too short. Bachman and Cummings expanded the song by adding to it a song Cummings had written that was also in the key of F#, “New Mother Nature.” And BOOM a mashup was born. I imagine it went something like this:

“Oh damn, this song’s too short.”
“Yeah, mine is too.”
“That sucks. What’s it about?”
“Mother nature. What about yours?”
“Sugar, tea, and coffee. What key is yours in?”
“F#…stupid key, I know.”
“SO IS MINE LET’S MAKE THEM BOTH INTO ONE SONG.”

And that’s exactly how it happened: hipster mash-up-ers 3+ decades early.

P.S. Another sweet part of the song? At 4:33 when some dude in the back just starts saying, “MOTHER. NATURE. SUGAR. SUGAR. SUGAR,” fairly loud in the background.