SIDE A - Hit the Road Jack
SIDE B - Excerpt from "For Elsie"
HIT THE ROAD JACK/FOR ELSIE
45rpm Single
| SIDE A - Hit the Road Jack SIDE B - Excerpt from "For Elsie" |
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Little to speak of, really. The Residents released this single in 1987. The A-side, "Hit the Road Jack," was originally recorded by Ray Charles in 1960, and remains one of his best-known songs. The Residents rearranged it with a heavy dance beat.
"For Elsie" is the Residents' variation on Beethoven's famous "Für Elise." It was originally distributed to attendees of the Residents' New Year's Eve concert in 1986/87. The version that appears here is abridged.
RATING: 7
Quick, easy (in a relative sense...), and impressive. The dance beat (slow) of "Hit the Road Jack" is a neat transformation, a perfect example of how twisted pop music gets when the Residents apply their dark vision to it. It's still pretty much the man/woman duet of the Ray Charles classic, but where that one had a scolding, fed-up woman and a whiny dude, the guy here sounds defeated and the female chorus taunts him nastily. There's even a part where, after the broken male says, "I'll have to pack my things and go," the voices of a thousand little girls scream, "THAT'S RIGHT!!" Marvelous.
"For Elsie" might be even better. For one thing, the Residents play vibes (or marimba?) on the rhythm track, and they're always wonderful with those things, creating beautiful but strange harmonies. Once they build up a percussive rumble, along comes the "Für Elise" melody, all classical noodling and flourish, which should have no place with this rhythm but somehow works perfectly. These people always astound with their ability to reimagine the most painfully familiar music.
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