Orgasmic Explosion Of Love

Unknown artist, song-poem “Virgin Child of the Universe” – Song-poems are the product of a peculiar sub-industry that quietly thrived in the ’60s up through the early ’80s or so. Basically, there were a few companies who would offer people the chance to have session musicians transform their poetry into pop songs. The results can be very bizarre – remember, a lot of people don’t exactly write poetry with an ear for melody, and that a lot of the people who would respond to something like this were a bit…eccentric. Many of the products are predictably drab, tossed-off things, but there are some song-poems, such as this one, that manage to fill out a lovely melody with lyrics that reach a level of head-scratching wtf?-ness that is truly sublime. You’ve got to hand it to this session singer – she is capable of not just finessing this obtuse ramble into an appealing melody, but also sell the song’s cosmic lyrics about a child born out of wedlock with soulful conviction. (Click here to buy it from the Key Of Z website.)

The Residents “Burn, Baby, Burn” – This selection is sung from the perspective of the daughter of Jephthah from the Old Testament, who is about to be sacrificed to God, who will in turn grant her father, a general, military victory. God digs her daddy, you see. As she patiently waits to be burned alive, she makes a keen observation: “I’m ready to die, but it seems to be odd / that bleeding is better than breathing to God.” (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)