Ohmigod, It's the Most Hideously Awful Early Clue to the New Direction Ever!!!

From 1966, please enjoy Napoleon the XIV and the B-side of his classic novelty hit "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!", the legendarily annoying "!aaaH-aH ,yawA eM ekaT oT gnimoC er'yehT."

	Napoleon XIV - !Aaah-Ah, Yawa Em Ekat Ot Gnimoc Er'yeht .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

I don't know if I've told this story before, but Napoleon the XIV was the nom du disque of aspiring producer Jerry Samuels, who recorded the now infamous song as a demo while working as a staff engineer at Associated Studios, the very same recording complex where my high school garage band used to do all our demos (that history, in case you missed it, can be found here).

In any case, I wasn't there at the time, but some of the guys from the aforementioned garage band were in fact working in another room at Associated while Samuels was cobbling his hit together, and at one point he asked them to come in and do some random screaming around a microphone. Presumably, said screams were mixed down onto the final version of "They're Coming" that we all know and love, if that's the word.

As for the B-side, no less an authority than Springsteen biographer Dave Marsh has called it the "most obnoxious song ever to appear in a jukebox", adding that it once "cleared out a diner of forty patrons in three minutes flat."

I have no doubt that's true, but a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded the first reader who gleans the clip's relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania nonetheless.