You Have To Be Joking

From Bella Union-

‘Three-time Grammy-Award winners, The Flaming Lips are one of the most enduring, influential, unpredictable, and universally respected bands of their generation or any other. Led by Wayne Coyne, they have been cited as the ultimate live attraction and life-affirming festival band who continue to dazzle audiences with their over-the-top, maximalist, high-energy onslaught on the senses.’ 

‘Since releasing The Terror, The Lips have released “With A Little Help From My Fwends”, a star-studded track-for-track tribute to The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band that featured special guests My Morning Jacket, Miley Cyrus(aack), Moby, Phantogram, Tegan and Sara (yawn), and many others. They also collaborated with Cyrus on her 23-track experimental album “Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz”. Miley Cyrus returns the favour by adding vocals to “We A Famly”, the final track from Oczy Mlody.‘

Bits From WikiWiki –

The ‘LIPS’ recorded several albums and EPs on the Restless indie label in the 1980s and early 1990s. After signing to Warner Brothers they released, Hit To Death In the Future Head (1992). Their 1993 album Transmissions From The Satellite Heart included the hit single ‘She don’t Use Jelly’ which broke the band into the mainstream. They later released The Soft Bulletin (1999), which was NME magazine’s Album of the Year, followed by the critically acclaimed ‘Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots’ (2002). They were placed on Q magazine’s list of the “50 Bands to See Before You Die” in 2002.

I really can’t remember precisely how or where I first heard of ‘The Lips’ but I remember the first spin of ‘Hit to Death In The Future Head’ which was their debut release in 1992. The album’s release was halted for nearly a year because of the use of a sample from Michael Kamen’s score for the film Brazil (a classic dystopian film from Terry Gilliam) in the track “You Have to Be Joking (Autopsy of the Devil’s Brain)”, which required a lengthy clearance process. The first spin hit me like the first listen to Radiohead’s ‘Pablo Honey’ debut. Both were different from the alt/indie rock that I usually listened to. Both were excitingly different. I put both of these albums in the ‘WOW, I CAN’T WAIT TO HEAR WHAT THEY COME UP WITH NEXT!!’ genre. These were ‘PROG ROCK PSYCHADELIA’ on LSD type bands that very quickly morphed as if to become something they didn’t initially intend. It took me awhile to appreciate the progression of Radiohead but The Lips took a turn after the Yoshimi/Robot stuff that I couldn’t really get into. There’s no taking away from their brilliance as musical artists. They became a spectacle. Perhaps my life circumstances stopped aligning with their music.

Lately I’ve been listening to my collections out of nostalgia and often find nuggets and words and chords that resonate with where we/I are at as a civilization right now. ‘You Have To Be Joking’ seems to sum up the current existential crisis facing humans on this earth right now. Very little makes sense. Good is bad. Bad is good. Depravity is virtuous. Evil is cool. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Genocide is pallatable. Everything is plausible. Everything is escalating. Will God or the Devil win? Whose side are you on. Will the solar eclipse and the rockets fired at them be the finale rack? Will it preclude world war three or the next pandemic of international concern. EMP anyone?

What would an autopsy of the Devil’s brain reveal?

You Have to Be Joking (Autopsy of the Devil’s Brain)

You have to be joking
They wouldn’t do what you said
Oh, my vision is blurred again

You have to be kidding me
They wouldn’t do those unspeakable things
Oh, my Jesus
It’s worse than you think

Stood here in the morning
Got no science to explain
Seems to me that God and the Devil
Are both the same

You have to be lying
They wouldn’t do what you told me about
Oh, my vision is blurred again