Category: No Bastard Left Behind

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.