Whip It
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| "Whip It" | ||||
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| Single by Devo | ||||
| from the album Freedom of Choice | ||||
| B-side | "Snowball", "Turn Around" | |||
| Released | August 1980 | |||
| Format | 7", CD | |||
| Genre | New Wave, Synthpop | |||
| Length | 2:37 (EP 3:43) | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. | |||
| Writer(s) | Gerald Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh | |||
| Producer | Robert Margouleff | |||
| Devo singles chronology | ||||
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"Whip It" is the title of a 1980 single by the American New Wave band Devo. It appears on the album Freedom of Choice. There were two 7" single releases of "Whip It", one backed with a remix of the track "Snowball" (which appears on Freedom of Choice) and one backed with "Turn Around" (a song later covered by Nirvana). "Whip It" was Devo's biggest hit, and peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, number three on the Canadian Singles Chart and number 77 on the Australian Singles Chart (Kent Music Report).[1]
It is ranked #62 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the '80s as well as #15 on the same channel's 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the '80s.
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[edit] Song information
"Whip It" is built on a motorik beat, similar to tracks by Neu! The lead instrument is a Minimoog synthesizer. The bass is performed with a custom six oscillator synthesizer, custom made by Moog Music for Devo. The whip sound was made with an EML ElectroComp 500 synthesizer.[2] On an episode of the VH1 show TrueSpin, Gerald V. Casale revealed that the lead guitar riff from "Whip It" is based on the riff from "Oh, Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison with the beat moved to the back. The song is in chromatic-minor with a tonic major chord.[3]
Gerald Casale told Songfacts that the lyrics were written by him "as an imitation of Thomas Pynchon's parodies in his book Gravity's Rainbow."[4] The lyrics evoke a working class desire to pull oneself up and to overcome adversity. The song has violent undertones, and Devo has often described it as about Jimmy Carter, as Mothersbaugh describes in an interview on To The Best of our Knowledge. However, many people took the lyrics at face value, interpreting the song as a paean to masturbation and sadomasochism, or a reference to inhaling nitrous oxide from whipped cream cans (taken from the name "whip-it", used to describe the nitrous chargers for whipped cream dispensers).
"Whip It" debuted at a live concert on December 29th, 1979 in Santa Cruz, California. The first performance included a synthesizer solo taken from the early Devo song "Chango." This performance was recorded and is available as a bootleg. A demo version was recorded in 1980 and later released in 2000 on the compilation Recombo DNA released by Rhino Handmade.
“Whip It” was covered by The Del Rubio Triplets, and they perform their version in the Sliders TV series episode "The King Is Back" (season 1, episode 9, 1995).
Alvin and the Chipmunks covered the song for their 1982 album Chipmunk Rock. In this version, they changed the lyric "break your mamma's back" to "scratch your mamma's back".
[edit] Music video
Devo funded the music video for "Whip It" with $15,000 USD of their own money. The main visual of the video, Mark Mothersbaugh whipping the clothes off a woman, was inspired by an article in a 1962 issue of "Dude" magazine. In an interview for Songfacts, Casale explains "There was a feature article on a guy who had been an actor and fell on hard times, he wasn't getting parts anymore. He moved with his wife to Arizona, opened a dude ranch and charged people money to come hang out at the ranch. Every day at noon in the corral, for entertainment, he'd whip his wife's clothes off with a 12-foot bullwhip. She sewed the costumes and put them together with Velcro. The story was in the magazine about how good he was and how he never hurt her. We had such a big laugh about it, we said, 'OK, that's the basis for the video. We'll have these cowboys drinking beer and cheering Mark on as he's in the barnyard whipping this pioneer woman's clothes off while the band plays in the corral.'"
In the video, Devo wears black, sleeveless turtlenecks, and their famous Energy Dome headgear. When the video begins, all the members, except for Mark Mothersbaugh, wear the turtlenecks pulled over their faces. During the performance, each member lowers the turtleneck. Robert Mothersbaugh ("Bob 1") plays a Moog Liberation keytar, Jerry Casale plays a red Rheem Kee Bass, and Alan Myers plays a set of Synare electronic drum pads.
Not surprisingly, the S&M overtones of the video caused controversy. Devo was forced to abandon a television appearance after the host deemed the video offensive to women[citation needed]. Despite this, "Whip It" received heavy rotation on MTV after its introduction in 1981.
The video was featured in the 2005 video game Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3.
[edit] Chart positions
| Chart (1980) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| UK Singles Chart | 62 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 14 |
| U.S. Billboard Disco Top 100 | 81 |
Notes:
- 1 - With "Gates of Steel" and "Freedom of Choice".
[edit] References
- ^ http://australian-charts.com/forum.asp?todo=viewthread&id=26268&pages=2
- ^ DEVO FAQ - Equpment
- ^ Stephenson, Ken (2002). What to Listen for in Rock: A Stylistic Analysis, p.89. ISBN 9780300092394.
- ^ "Whip It". Songfacts.com. http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=722. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
[edit] External links
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