LYRICS
Album Notes
Track: Tobacco
Length: 0:40
Track: Mary Jo Kopechne
Length: 2:24
(from the album "Death of a Favorite Cat", 1977)
Track: The Journey To Dallas
Length: 5:54
(from "Death of a Favorite Cat")
Track: Gimmy Jimmy
Length: 2:00
(from "Demise of a Preferred Feline") (kidding folks, kidding!)
Track: 500* of (C not F) Hit Vinyl
Length: 2:52
(from "D o a F C")
Track: Russia
Length: 2:29
(from the album "969695", 1979)
Track: Pants
Length: 3:54
(from the album "Way of the Wind", 1980)
Track: Puke O' Paducah
Length: 1:56
(from the album "969695", 1979)
Track: I Smell Rank
Length: 2:04
(from the album "R", 1988)
Track: Ronnie
Length: 3:12
(from "R")
Track: Boris the Pterodactyl
Length: 0:57
(from "R")
Track: The Asshole Hall of Fame
Length: 3:29
(from the album "Length Has Everything To Do With It", 1990)
Track: No Mo' Cigamoes
Length: 2:58
(from "Length Has Everything To Do With It")
Track: Quayle Huntin'
Length: 3:57
(from "L H E T D W I")
Track: The Telephone Pole Song
Length: 2:13
(from "L H E T D W I")
Track: There's a Stranger In My Butt
Length: 3:00
(from you guessed it - "L H E T D W I")
Track: Pardon Me, I'm Gonna Be Sick
Length: 1:22
(from the album "Red Moon", 1989)
Track: "...Huh?"
Length: 0:28
(yes, another one from "L H E T D W I")
Track: Guys With Ties
Length: 2:51
(from the album "Not The Next MagellanMusic", 1991)
Track: Welfare Sluts
Length: 2:23
(from "Not The Next MagellanMusic")
Track: I Can't Afford To Puke
Length: 2:41
(from "N T N MM")
Track: Backdoor Baby
Length: 3:17
(from the album "Who Watches The Watchers?", 1993)
Track: Billy Boy
Length: 3:28
(from "Who Watches The Watchers?")
Track: Mr. Dithers
Length: 1:13
(from the album "A Phanus XXX-mas", 1995)
Track: I Kissed A Frog And My Ass Turned Green
Length: 1:05(from "A Phanus XXX-mas")
Track: The Toilet
Length: 0:25
(from the bathroom)
How This Collection of Crap Came About
Back when the Vietnam War and the Watergate Affair were blessing and cultivating the greatness of our beloved country, two mentally lopsided teenagers still in High School felt like hitting the road a la Jack Kerouac. In this case it wasn’t so much the search for ‘freedom’ as it was the search for a very special cactus called Peyote. It’s actually called “The Divine Cactus”. It happens to contain Nature’s finest gift to the World-As-We-Know-It, an ass kickin’ chemical called Mescaline. Folks, we’re talking some serious shit here. It alters consciousness, changes the entire structure of conception, it has no side effects, it’s not addictive, and you can’t overdose on it. (I wonder if the Peyote plant would be the picture next to the dictionary description of “Perfect”?) It’s strong enough to send you on trips to alternate universes (luckily it has never been known to accidentally send you to Uranus).
THAT, ladies and gentlemen, was the reason for the legendary Journey To Dallas, and what lead to Phanus Phallus Phobias. It was only called “Journey To Dallas” because we didn’t have enough time to make it all the way to Big Bend National Park. Big Bend is on the border of Mexico and renowned for the most choice pickings of Peyote anywhere on planet Earth, and that was precisely our destination. We had heard that it was so thick in that general area that if you were trying to camp somewhere off-the-road and fell to the ground face first you could easily meet Mr. Mescaline face to face accidentally!
In case anyone is interested, there are different ways to ingest Peyote. The most common is ‘tea’, which is how it’s served in the Peyote Way Church of God (people worship this stuff! Are you believing this!?). Others, like us snotty-nosed Drug Brats (Chemical Chameleons, Chemical Radicals, Chemical Embiciles), performed the unmitigated nerve of actually eating it. This is where we delve into the momentous Universal Propensity of Horrifyingly Torturous Flavor. We never attempted comparing it, but we suspect that Shit was a marked improvement. In fact, it’s worse than that, probably comparable to Septic Tank scrapings. We always wondered if water from the Love Canal would be tasty in washing it down (at least that stuff would make you glow in the dark and help you save on your electric bill).
Anyway, the disappointment in not reaching Big Bend National Park was considerable but not crushing. Thanks to foresight, we traveled in preparation (not Preparation H). We consumed an entire quarter pound of very potent marijuana in less than a week, which included making some of the most shit-kickin’ “Magic Brownies” ever ingested by human beings. After floating home from our journey, we weren’t sure if we’d just experienced the most amazing ‘head trip’ ever experienced, or an actual, verifiable journey. That has been in question for years since the motorcycle we traveled on had fewer miles after our time on the road! It could have been a week, it could have been a year. We carefully checked our calendars to affirm proper date (and year), even called our employers to verify the fact that we were still employed. How we remembered any part of that fabled journey after continuous pummeling from TetraHydra Cannabinol is still a mystery.
It must have been the song we wrote. After the initial explosion of all the MagellanMusic efforts, the hilarity of such a trip wouldn’t leave us. A ‘folk’ song developed, which was a unique change from the usual progressive music scene. Folk songs often speak of legends, so this was a natural. When we were finished it was over 10 minutes in length, but we weren’t worried because of the ‘natural’ use of normal street language. We forgot about the accepted lyrical etiquette and told the story straight up. We figured that our ‘audience’ would be a bunch of drug heads, so, what difference would it make? Sure enough, it had an immediate affect on everybody. People enjoyed it, laughed heartily. Using foul language was real for a change, down to Earth. By golly, we’d found something good! Even the preposterous name we found – Phanus Phallus Phobias – was equal to the task.
When in a boat without a paddle one has to ‘go with the flow’, so we started writing new songs in the same vein. Lots of them. We looked around and saw so much insanity in the world, so much lousy political, economic, and social bullshit, that if we’d written about everything that could piss off a normal, working, law-abiding taxpayer we could have abandoned MagellanMusic entirely. As these songs ‘collected’ it was immediately obvious that people enjoyed it immensely. These slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of songs were NOT what was expected when hearing what sounded like Folk songs.
People were shocked to hear us sing “Mary Jo Kopechne”, for instance. “He wants a piece of ass. Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Well, come on guys, think about it! Mary Jo was Kennedy’s personal secretary, his wife wasn’t around, they were at a very high class party, they got hammered, they hopped in their car, Kennedy drove like a bat out of hell – and to do what? Have breakfast at the nearest Denny’s? I doubt it! I too have been at a party where I was hornier than a Toad and would have attempted challenging Jesus to his Walk On Water trick if it meant scoring that luscious babe I’d been after all night. And that’s what the Kopechne incident sounded like to us. Plus, we couldn’t believe that anybody could get away with killing someone (even if it was accidental). If that had happened to you or me, we might have become inmates somewhere and Bubba’s new ‘girlfriend’, or at least become best friends with our friggin’ Parole Officer. That was how we felt about it, that’s the way we sang it; THAT was what Phanus Phallus Phobias was all about.
To this day Phanus Phallus Phobias is alive and well and we have the same problem as before - so many puzzling, angering social issues that there’s almost too much to sing about. It’s a part of MagellanMusic, and songs are usually included on MM albums regularly, but this is the first Phanus album of its own to be presented to the public. It’s a compilation that spans our time together, and the songs are in very close sequential order of when they were released. If you care to know more, here are a few words about each song:
1. Tobacco – Obviously it was tongue-in-cheek reference to marijuana!
2. Mary Jo Kopechne – Hey! Didn’t we talk about this one already?
3. The Journey To Dallas – Thankfully, this is an edited version at less than 6 minutes. Much better on the ears!
4. Gimme Jimmy – Jimmy proved himself as a first class Ambassador, but as President a crash course in “Sales Techniques” by a Fuller Brush man would’ve helped.
5. 500* of (C not F) Hot Vinyl – To put it simply, Per and Vince were superb shoplifters! And what they specialized in was albums. They were so good that at High School it literally grew into a ‘business’. Even the Teachers would partake in the pass-around ‘catalog’ (which had to be hand-written every day), from which everyone would put in their ‘order’, which we would promptly fill, and deliver the next day. It was one dollar for a single album, two bucks for a double album. ‘Special Orders’ were higher however.
6. Russia – There were many of us who could not possibly understand what the hatred for Russia was all about. The Red Scare from the 50’s may have had a basis, but we were forever lead to believe that Russia was the Fire-Eating Dragon bent on kidnapping the Beautiful Princess and having her for dinner - dainty undergarments and all. All a bunch of bullshit. Hitler himself would have been proud of such amazing propaganda.
7. Pants – This one was for fellow musicians. Basic truth is, it doesn’t matter what you sing, how you sing it, what you play, or how you play it, if the cash register isn’t ringing at the door or at the bar, you’re out! But when on stage, the antics of the crowd are sights to behold!
8. Puke O’ Paducah – Jeez, the songs speaks for itself – loud and clear!
9. I Smell Rank – Ever have one of those days when your work day has felt like an entire week and just sitting on the most comfortable chair in the house is a blessed event and merely taking a shower is the last thing you wanna do?
10. Ronnie – Another one of those Presidential Administrations where the Pres just isn’t in control. This is perhaps Mr. Reagan’s most famous quote: “I have orders to be awakened at any time in the case of National Emergency, even if I’m in a Cabinet meeting.”
11. Boris the Pterodactyl – Funny how megastars have the knack of bringing the house down if they sing a 40 second song…
12. The Asshole Hall of Fame – The world needs one, badly; a place to regale the spectacle of those who have earned and deserve such recognition.
13. No Mo’ Cigamoes – We’ve all heard 50,000 stories of people trying to quit smoking, but most of the time it doesn’t work. Nothing quite like that first toke off your cig if you haven’t smoked for a week. Aah!...
14. Quayle Huntin’ – Considering that Dan Quayle was the most inept, bumbling fool to ever inhabit the Office of Vice President, #2 in the chain of command of the most powerful country on Earth, we’re endlessly surprised that some nut case didn’t try to remove him from politics permanently.
15. The Telephone Pole Song – Next time you break up with your love mate listen to this one! It may be directed at women, but it serves well for all!
16. There’s A Stranger In My Butt – Sometimes these unspeakable gut problems we have are beyond explanation. It’s not a simple medical problem, it feels like something’s alive in there, like you’re about to give birth to something that inspired the movie “It’s Alive”.
17. Pardon Me, I’m Gonna Be Sick – Nothing is as memorable and cherished as hanging your head over that toilet bowl and gushing the memories of a fantastic party last night that left you with the worst hangover in history.
18. “…Huh?” – Yes, there are songs so terrible that you’d love to just unload the entire clip of your machine gun to shut him up!
19. Guys With Ties – They look like Clones don’t they? Perfect suits and ties, shoes polished to mirror finish, not a single hair out of place, unquestionably the superior race.
20. Welfare Sluts – Unfortunately, there are those who do it for a living, using criminal methods, and are as open-legged as they are open-minded. The sickest scam of them all.
21. I Can’t Afford To Puke – Nothing like going to buy just basic stuff like food, socks, and underwear, then notice you have only a $20 bill to last you for the week. And as this dampens your spirits, you turn on the TV and see the Presidential candidates promise how much they’ll improve your life if elected. Yeah. Right. Lovely.
22. Backdoor Baby – A journey down Ye Olde Hershey Highway is rather unforgettable…
23. Billy Boy – Another classic Presidential tale that took the whole country on a journey down Ye Olde Hershey Highway…
24. Mr. Dithers – Always, and I mean ALWAYS, take a good, long look at your doctor before he ‘treats’ you!
25. I Kissed A Frog And My Ass Turned Green – A fairy tale on Acid perhaps?
26. The Toilet – One of the greatest inventions of all time. Perfect way to end a classic CD!
We hope you enjoy!
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