90 Miles From Tyranny : Psycho Chicken

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Saturday, January 11, 2020

Psycho Chicken


The first time I heard Psycho Chicken, I was on an Army Base in Germany inside a beer tent, sitting with some friends and drinking beer during Octoberfest in the 80's.

Every year, this Army base would host the German-American Octoberfest on the base, inside the gates, and allow German nationals to enter in order to drink beer with Americans and foster good will with the locals (they were generally mildly hostile).

Anyways, on the stage was a pretty good cover band, playing some good 'ole Rock and Roll.  On an Army base in the 70's and 80's there were a few songs that a band had to cover, Sweet Home Alabama, Free bird, and... I think my memory is failing me here...
So then I heard Psycho Chicken for the first time. Really cool bass line, I loved the lyrics and the guitar play was really interesting. I had to find out what band it was from.

I'm not sure how I know this, but the Military has to approve of a band, and all their songs and lyrics must be approved before they are allowed to go on the Military circuit and play on the bases all across Europe (which was much more extensive than it is now). And this is how Psycho Chicken came to be. The band had to change the lyrics from "Psycho Killer" to "Psycho Chicken" in order to be able to play it on Military bases.

In some ways I was disappointed and in some ways I liked the new title, because back then I was one of those "Long Haired, Maggot Infested FM Types", according to the great Rush Limbaugh.


I Present To You:

PSYCHO CHICKEN:

5 comments:

MrSparky said...

Hey Mike...love everything you do here so I hate to correct you.....but Psycho Chicken is by the Fools, a group out of Boston that also did Life Sucks Then You Die. 2 different songs altogether.

Doom said...

What type? FM? I don't always quite understand. Generally, yeah. I was similar, until a few years ago. Always tripped lefties when they would be crying to me about, say, Kerry losing, expecting empathy, only to tell them... "You think YOU have it bad? I was forced to vote for the socialist to keep the communist out!"

Oh, and I visited Germany around that time, in the eastern central area. Odd, but I never went to a single concert. Still haven't.

Time flies.

Mike Miles said...

Hehe, I found the song you are talking about, Psycho killer came out in 1977, this is clearly a funny mockup that came out in 1980. The band i saw were definitely singing Psycho Killer Song with the chicken changeup. funny song though.

Mike Miles said...

FM radio, I am guessing that Rush was an AM type, probably before our time.

Doom said...

Ah, that, yeah. Danke.