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Psychedelically-inclined weirdo home recordists with exemplary pop genes setting a humble course through nicely-hummable proggish realms of the musical cosmos. Makes me happy in my headphones. Nice nod to "Ladies of the Road" in the chorus. I'm sure they knew at least 75% of their audience would catch that one.
From an oblique reference to Screamin' Jay, I can't help but put the man front and center. Right where he belongs. Sending my mind back to an age of tickled novelty, where deep, rusted out racism could be temporarily nudged aside by a more genteel prejudice. I wonder if the people of Hong Kong would've been offended by his puerile asides about egg foo yung and other gibberish in the middle of a blues about being separated from your baby in a strange land. If nothing else, it's a reminder to laugh out loud whenever you find yourself lost and alone.
There you are living your adult life with adult concerns at the bus stop on a frigid morning when Nina Hagen careens across your headphones. Suddenly, it's an '80s musical foodfight, or three and a half minutes with the class clown doing her best impression of French culture cribbed from National Lampoon's European Vacation. Rivaling only Screamin' Jay Hawkins's geopolitical antics, Hagen collides the insipid with the infectious. More and more, I'm convinced that those heroic choruses only work when the singer is slapping herself in the face with a wet towel. Which is when my idiot heart melts.
