This song is taken from Devo's second LP, 1979's Duty Now for the Future and reflects the slight shift away from the edgier post-punk sound of their debut, Q: Are We Not Men A: We are Devo (1978), towards the synth-pop of 1980's Freedom of Choice. The album is certainly weaker than Q: Are We Not Men?.., in that most of the material had been around since 1976-7, as heard on a multitude of bootlegs, and was basically the stuff that hadn't made the cut for the first album. Interesting, then, that the sound should be stylistically so different; something that can probably be put down to the approach of producer Ken Scott (as opposed to that of Brian Eno on their debut).
'The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize' is a highlight of the album, being pretty much a straight-up pop song, but with some typically idiosyncratic drumming and a chorus sung in an almost pseudo-lounge refrain. The lyrics seem to refer to a girl making her boyfriend aware of an unplanned pregnancy ("Got a message from my girl / When she picked up the pen from beside the bed and wrote me a scribbled note") and how this affects their relationship ("Go out on a loving spree just like before the accident / My baby would look at me").
The music video refers to these themes in a somewhat flippant manner as the boys examine a crying baby in a sterile control room, and later have trouble with the cheeky tike when he takes off flying. We also get to see a potato playing a hippopotamus's tooth! What's not to like?
The sleeve of this record is one of my favourite, being completely independent from the art concepts of the album it's from. It's an old photograph blown up with the Devo logo and the title in a pretty funky typeface slapped on top. This thing is creepy, but in a wacky sort of way; jolly yet sinister. It's pretty much generally accepted that clowns are creepy. And everyone knows masks are creepy. But look at the way that guy's mask appears to be one with his face. And this is before the days of digital photo touch-ups. The whole thing hints at something darker under the face of Americana, which is pretty much the general theme to most of Devo's work.
The back cover is also rather fetching and always reminds me of Gilbert and George.
The B-side is 'Penetration in the Centrefold'; a song covered by Pussy Galore on their Sugarshit Sharp E.P. to such successful effect that it convincingly sounds like an original Jon Spencer composition, both musically and lyrically. It doesn't sound much like a Devo song and even when you hear the original it still doesn't sound much like a Devo song. Well, not 1979 Devo. At a stretch it sounds like it could fit in with the more weird, experimental and troubling compositions on Hardcore Vol. 2 that Devo were writing in the mid-1970s, but it seems anachronistic as the B-side to this single. Not that it's not enjoyable - its just such an odd little song and there's really not anything else like it that I've heard: nasty guitar; squealing synth noises; stop-start verses leading to a clattering caterwaul of a 'chorus'; Mark's desperate, half-barked vocals and the whole thing dressed up in a lyric about the unappetising subject matter of a hardcore porn mag that displays, ahem, 'penetration in the centrefold'. This is unpalatable and ugly, yet fascinating and compulsive; a track to rubberneck to.
Production credit for this one goes to Eno, so I'd guess it was recorded during the Q: Are We Not Men?... sessions and left off the album for obvious reasons. It's since been tacked on to various Devo compact disc reissues so go check it out.
Duty Now!
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