Young Man Original

Having just re-watched The Kids Are Alright (thanks, Makerbot), I thought I’d post the original of this song in case any of you bastards are unfamiliar.  I purchased Live At Leeds in the early 70’s and for years just assumed YMB was a Townsend song.  I didn’t hear this original until the early 80’s.

The Who weren’t the first to do a heavy cover of Mose Allison.  Acid-rockers Blue Cheer and blues-rocker Johnny Winter recorded “Parchman Farm,” a song about the infamous Mississippi Delta prison camp (Mose was from Mississippi).  Below is the Blue Cheer version, which for some reason they changed to “parchment” (to skirt copyright?)  Although I’m not a huge Blue Cheer fan, they’re interesting enough for a separate post, if for no other reason than they were considered the loudest band in existence.  They also get credit for representing the dark, aggressive underbelly of the late 60’s San Francisco scene.  Some believe them to be the first heavy metal band, and they’re probably right.  Hell’s Angels in particular liked them.  One Angel said that when Blue Cheer played, the air turned to cottage cheese.  I think that was his way of saying they were really loud, although acid might have been involved.

Not-so-fun fact: Vernon Presley did time at Parchman.

You can hear a lot of Mose (and Chet Baker) in Alex Chilton, who put me on to both of them.  My upbringing was jazz-deprived.

8 Replies to “Young Man Original”

  1. Vincebus Eruptum indeed.

    Muchos thankos. Further gaping holes in rock knowledge plugged once again by Lord Renfield. This is no doubt the same Seventh Son obsessed upon by local Valco Airline enthusiast Jack White.

    And I’ll just imagine that Mose from The Office is named for Mr. Allison.

  2. I too was unfamiliar. Very different version from The Who’s!

    And I can totally hear the influence on Chilton’s vocals.

  3. “Seventh Son” was actuallywritten by Willie Dixon. It’s the kind of song all composers wish they’d written, hence the many covers.

    The Yardbirds did a good cover of Mose’s “I’m Not Talking.”

    Like Procol Harum, Vincebus Eruptum makes absolutely no sense. Both bands clearly flunked Latin. Or maybe they were riffing on the species captions from Roadrunner cartoons. At least Nirvana got In Utero right.

  4. Ha ha. No, but “Jimi Hendrix Experience for Lunkheads” is the perfect desciption for them. To answer his question, Blue Cheer was the street name for a type of acid.

  5. I have that Blue Cheer record. Unfortunately the less valuable stereo version. I dove into Mose after reading Pete’s bio (meh).

  6. My brother had a Blue Cheer phase when he was an early teen and I was a tween. Otherwise I wouldn’t have heard of them for years, maybe never. They do seem perfect for a newly adolescent male. I didn’t much care for them as our tastes diverged for a while. As most Brit invasion and garage bands waned, I started getting into the Beach Boys, whom he never liked and still doesn’t. He got into the power trio thing. I didn’t board the heavy-blues train until Zeppelin came along.

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