Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Song of the Year! of the Ox!



Here's a blast from the fairly distant past in honor of the brand-new Year of the Ox: Plague of Daisies performing the song "I'd Rather be a Cow" in a living-room tape from Spring 1994.


Plague of Daisies was, on this particular song:
  • michael5000 on guitar and vocals
  • DrSchnell on the bitchin' cello
  • Mike Horan on the mandolin and backing (albeit far superior) vocals
  • the late great Gary Shea on bass


WARNING: Tinny!

WARNING: May take forever to load!

















19 comments:

Morgan said...

That's freakin' awesome.

gl. said...

*clap clap clap*

fingerstothebone said...

When I wear something that jingles, I sound like a cow walking across the pasture...

fingerstothebone said...

And now you're advertising Playboy magazine...

DrSchnell said...

Ah, our greatest hit! Dude - was that really fifteen years ago? And yet our imprint on pop culture remains as indelible as ever!

Chance said...

Pure pop magic! Really, like early REM. You're right on most counts, though: tinny, and while I wouldn't disparage your vocals, the backups are terrific. Why is it credited to your name alone? Plague of Daisies is a fantastic name for a band.

Jennifer said...

We were talking about Plague of Daisies in one of my classes yesterday, believe it or not.

This one is (of course) one of my family's favorite songs ever, up there with the Beatles.

gl. said...

@chance: funny, i was thinking rem, too!

Michael5000 said...

@Morgan, gl.: Thanks!

@fingers: Firstly, awesome! Do you occasionally moo for effect?

Secondly, yes: the L&TM5K heartily endorses Playboy magazine for its interviews and short fiction, its helpful articles about hi-fi systems, automobiles, and other items of interest to men, and its many photographs of oddly stylized female forms that have rendered generations of men a little baffled when confronted for the first time with an actual naked human woman!

@doc: Indelible! It is hard to imagine Kanye West ever having broken if we hadn't paved the way for him, for instance.

@Chance: Sure, at the time I had been on a diet of near-daily R.E.M. for years, so it's anything but a coincidence. Mike Horan, who did the backups, was and remains an actual professional musician; he was just slumming around with the likes of us.

It's credited to my name alone because I have a web mp3 posting account for my own music, and that's where I stuck it last night when I had the idea of posting it on the blog. (I also wrote the song, as if you couldn't guess). Plague of Daisies didn't have much of a web presence because, you know, 1994. And, we are not currently active as the former members live on the West Coast, East Coast, Kansas, and, well, heaven or whatever.

@Serendip: I find it very, very difficult to believe that anybody was talking about Plague of Daisies in any context anywhere yesterday, actually. But this speaks to DrSchnell's comment on "indelible influence," I suppose.

Anonymous said...

There is a palpable REM feeling to it, especially the drums.

Michael5000 said...

@karma: wiseacre

Morgan said...

It reminded me of REM too. Especially the opening verse. I don't know why.

mhwitt said...

I am probably going to make every replier jealous with this one: I own an entire cassette of Plague of Daisies tunes, including 'I'd Rather Be a Cow.' Yes, I said cassette. It includes hand-drawn cover art from M5K. Having such a tape is just one of the myriad benefits of being one of M5K's old friends.

(Well, DrSchnell won't be jealous. He was a Daisy, the stud.)

M5K, when you're looking for reasonably quick blog posts, you ought to serve up some more classics like 'Rastafarian Bankers,' 'Jesus Was a Hippie Too' and 'Straight to Hell.' Probably the best written original song in the P.O.D. oeuvre was, from what I have heard, 'Paradise' written by Mr. Horan if I recall. Fifteen years later, it still gets happily stuck in my head when I'm out for a walk on a warm, sunny day.

DrSchnell said...

On days like today, Gary's song "Icicle Time" still is a constant in my mental jukebox.

I'd say that "Rastafarian Bankers" is one of my two favorite PoD songs, along with "Paradise". For what that's worth.

And speaking of our indelible pop culture imprint, anybody heard M.I.A.'s super big hit "Paper Planes"? (found in, among other places, the movie "Slumdog Millionaire") The sample throughout? "Straight to Hell". The Clash's version, not ours, but still, I can't help but come to the obvious conclusion that she somehow must've gotten hold of a PoD bootleg somewhere during her checkered past.

fingerstothebone said...

I can't really moo, it comes out like 'murr.' The Good Prince, however, does an awesome moo. So it takes the two of us to sound like one real cow.

Michael5000 said...

@fingers: And even at that, you only have half of the requisite stomachs.

Bridget said...

Wow - that was really awesome. Of course, the only words that I could understand were the refrain, but hey, at 9 am, "I'd rather be a cow" is pretty damn catchy . . .

Anonymous said...

Chinese New Year for 2009 is on the 26th of January: the Year of the Yin Earth Ox.

In Chinese Astrology each sign is represented by an animal. There are 12 animal signs in total, each corresponding to a lunar year, with each sign also having 5 elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal & Water). In certain years, particular elements are more prominent. For instance in 2005, the ‘wood’ element is very prominent so therefore it is 2005, Year of the Wood Rooster. The special combination of the Sign and Element only occurs once every 60 years.

As Chinese Astrology is one of the oldest types of Astrology, the origins of naming the years after animals is unknown. But a popular legend is that Buddha (c.563-c.483 B.C) invited all the animals to visit him, and as a demonstration of thanks to those who came, he dedicated a year to each of the animals according to the order in which they arrived: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig.

MJ said...

when is the "best of" CD coming out? or is it already on the market?