Fish Heads (song)
"Fish Heads" is a novelty song by comedy rock duo Barnes and Barnes, featured on their 1980 album Voobaha.[1] It has often been played on the Dr. Demento show, and is the second-most honored song in Demento show history.[2]
The song is about fish heads and all the things they can (or, more often, cannot) do, such as playing baseball, wearing sweaters, dancing, playing drums, or being seen drinking cappuccino in Italian restaurants with Oriental women. It is accompanied by a high-pitched chorus, achieved by speeding up the tape, which repeats the original's chorus.
Actor Bill Paxton directed and appeared in the music video for the song, which aired on NBC television on Saturday Night Live, on December 6, 1980.
[edit] Covers
- Wild Man Fischer released a cover of "Fish Heads" on his album Pronounced Normal.
- Eagle-Eye Cherry released a cover of "Fish Heads" as a Desireless B-side.
- Duran Duran covered the song live on the group's RedCarpet Massacre World Tour
- Buck 65 recorded a cover of "Fish Heads" put to the music of Wire's "Three Girl Rhumba". The cover appears on a 2007, tour-only CD-R titled, Heck.
- The Bicycling Guitarist published a cover of "Fish Heads played on a bicycle" on YouTube. Artie Barnes posted a positive comment on it.
[edit] In popular culture
The video was played regularly on the Nickelodeon television series Turkey Television in 1985.
Robert Haimer, one of the members of Barnes and Barnes, posted a version of the song on YouTube, where the phrase fish heads is replaced with YouTube. [3]
In the "Treehouse of Horror VII" (1996) episode of the animated television series, The Simpsons, Homer sings and hums the song as he carries a bucket of fish heads to the attic to feed Bart's mutant twin brother, Hugo.
Every Friday, self promoting local Jersey radio station Channel 103 hosts a "Fish Head Friday", where every hour on The Breakfast Show, a verse and chorus from "Fish Heads" is played.
On the February 9, 2010, episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, the Roots played the song as Bill Paxton entered the stage as a guest. Paxton explained that it was the thirtieth anniversary of the short.
