Hey kids, Slapp Happy was a German/English avant-pop group, formed in Germany in 1972. Let’s sample some of their wisdom:
He used to wear fedoras
Now he sports a fez
There’s cabalistic innuendoes
In everything he says
Sucking at a cigarette
Picking up a thread
Underneath the Casablanca Moon
And so, that’s the first stanza of a tune I played on the air 20+ years ago as a dopey young-guy DJ at WRCT 88.3 FM. It’s been haunting me all these years past, finally just bought the CD. You should too. Here’s the track in question…
He lurks behind a paper
In the shadow of a mosque
He can’t count all the continents
He’s crossed
Trailing party-members leaving
Footprints in the frost
Underneath the Acnalbasac Noom
His cover was broken somewhere
In Hoboken the man said his
Case was lost
He was sent to the Orient
A double agent double crossed
There’s a cocaine stain on his moustache
The pieces of his puzzle just don’t join
People in high places want to stamp his
Many faces on a trans-caucasian coin
He’d better watch his step ’cause sooner or
Later they’ll find his headless body in
A ventilator
Lines of sweat like tinsel start to smart his eyes
Neurosis seeps like cement through the cracks in his disguise
In a dark bordello he cracked a mirror with his cries
Underneath the Casablanca Moon
Yesterday evening he finally lost his mind
The walls fell in and he saw all man kind
Was standing before him all raising their hands
In a significant gesture which he didn’t understand
His cover was broken somewhere
In Hoboken the man said his
Case was lost
He was sent to the Orient
A double agent double crossed
He used to wear fedoras
Now he sports a fez
There’s cabalistic innuendoes
In everything he says
Sucking at a cigarette
Picking up a thread
Underneath the Casablanca Moon
He’d better watch his step ’cause sooner or Later … they’ll find his headless body in a ventilator
…of course, you can purchase these fine tunes for yourself by clicking here…