Chords for Behind The Vinyl: "Rock Lobster" with Fred Schneider from The B-52's

_ Hi, I'm Fred Schneider the B-52s and I'm going to play the big hit off of our first album
Well one of the many but actually it is rock lobster.
So wish me luck queuing it up and
_ [D]
I'll be [Eb] blabbing about it _ _ _ _ _
[Cm] Boy, I'm a professional
[G] _ [F] So we recorded this [G] in
_ [D] _ [Gm] 1979 and
[D] the [G] original
_ Idea for it.
I went to this disco in Atlanta, [Eb] Georgia
called 2001 [C] and
instead of having a light show and [Eb] fabulousness it
they [Ab] had a slideshow [G] and
It was [C] empty and they showed [Eb] pictures of [Ab] puppies _
[G] _ [C] babies and
[Eb] Lobsters on a grill [Ab] and I thought [G] okay [Cm] rock lobster
that's a good [Eb] title for a song [Ab] because it's the B [G]-52s we were just jamming at the time and
[Ab] _ so we jammed [Abm] on it for [D] hours and hours and [D] miles and miles of
[Ab] real to real tape and
_ _ [Fm] Keith and Ricky went and
[Eb] spliced ideas [D] together brought them to Kate Cindy and I and we [G] put in our
[G] six [Fm] cents and
[G] We came up with a six minute 48
[Fm] _ Second song which [G] we're just [D] we have a hard time editing [D] ourselves, [G] but who cares?
_ So
_ [Eb]
This is actually a [C] seersucker suit
_ but [D] they couldn't do that on the [G] album and
_ I was just [Eb] hi well in America
[Ab] It says play [G] loud because when I [Eb] first heard it is like who this sounds [Ab] a little
rinky-dink [D] because I didn't never really realize what we [C] sounded like but
[Abm] It went [Cm] it was doing well was going off the charts and then we did Saturday Night Live [Gm] and _
[Ebm] _ _ After that it just went [Ab] back up the charts went [E] platinum [Ab] double platinum we toured the world
[Em] _ [Eb] _
_ [Fm] and
[C] _ _ _ Cindy [D] does the fish?
Well, you'll hear him later the fish noises _ _
That's definitely an homage a to Yoko ono _ _
But we always just did things our own ways
You don't have any preconceived
notions, I mean I was writing lyrics [C] with Keith on the way into the studio to jam and
But then I changed, you know, my my [Eb] lines and stuff and then the girls added their noises [E] at the end
It [Ab] was took three [D] this album took three [Eb] weeks to record
[C] For I think
$35 [B],000 and I wish we had just
[A] paid for it
instead [Ab] of owning everything to Warner Brothers, [F] but
[Gb] _ They [Db] didn't know what to do with us, but once [D] we started selling they got [Ebm] on board
_ _ [Fm] We played [D] Toronto
_ [D] We did the oh
the [G] Heatwave Festival and
[Eb] And
_ [Cm] Got to meet all the different [Eb] acts that were playing there.
It was real exciting
_ [G] [Fm] Went to Australia [G] where
we [C] were sort of like playing small clubs [Eb] in
[C] all over the place in America Canada [Eb] and then we go to [Ab] Australia and
[G] rock lobster was like [C] the biggest thing until [Eb] we are the world and
[Ab] _ _
[G] _ We were like in shock as they [Eb] treated us like we were
[Ab] Superstars were like in schlubby outfits and [Eb] you know [Ebm] doing just our same little rinky [G]-dink set
I mean, it's not rinky-dink, but it wasn't like
[C] light show and
[Ab] We [Gm] did try smoke
[G] But but [Eb] back then that was the bad smoke that we [C] just wax [Ab] based
but we were singing [Fm] on [D] in America somewhere on our
early tours [C] and
[Eb] the smoke started going [D] up from the floor and then up and up and
[G] Pretty soon it's over our heads and all you hear see a [D] smoke and hearing us laughing because [E] if something goes wrong
We just [C] laugh it's not like [D] you're fired
So we worked that
_ _ [C] _ Well bikini whales you see them at the beach of course
[C] _ _ _ Like I said it didn't take that long we did this [Fm] what we did it we did it live in the [Eb] studio and [D] then
Did some [Db] overdubs, but it's pretty [C] much [Gb] a live
[Bb] recording [A] at compass point studios [Eb] in the Bahamas and
[D] _ [Db] Chris Blackwell was the producer he [Db] crossed and Blackwell marmalade [E] and all that [C] stuff
He [Eb] was great
_ [C] _
And Robert Ash also coproduced.
Well.
He produced it and Chris [Eb] over saw the whole [Cm] project
_ a Lot
[D] Here we go.
There's the [F] yoga on a part
[Eb] and she came [C] on our _
[Fm] 25th anniversary to show in New York yoga came on stage and did her yoga thing
On rock lobster which was like a [F] totally exciting.
She's she's really great
_ _ and
Actually her and John we didn't know this at the time, but we found out reading Rolling Stone that John [F] heard
rock [Eb] lobster at a club [F] in
the in Bermuda and
[C] When he heard he liked the song thought it [Ab] was really great, and then he heard the yo-yo part
and that's when [Eb] he said to yoga, but we got to get back in the studio [Db] there ready for you [Eb] and us and
[Fm] _
They did devil fantasy and
[Eb] We've been in touch with the yoga whoever [Fm] since because we were big fans of hers, too
_ _ And there's the fish noise
[Ab] _ _ Which we still do
[F] _ _
_ [F] But it's been this song [Eb] actually was one of the best-selling independent singles in
[C] 1978
back [Fm] with 52 girls
_ We never saw a penny, but we had it put us out on the map especially Australia
That's that's what got us to be so big in Canada to Australia so
And the band still performing so [Eb] hopefully we'll be in Toronto again soon all over Canada
[Ab] _ _ [Fm] So let's [Eb] see what else _ [F] _ _
[Eb] _ [F] and the friend came up with the
Original logo and it has the [Gb] asterisk which [E] is grammatically incorrect, so [D] we've corrected that [F] now
it's just be 5 2 s and
that was rock lobster [Gb] _ I was [F] trying to come up with titles for songs [C] and
_ Love [F] shack just popped in my mind.
I didn't know of [Ab] other that other bands had done [D] songs called love shack
[Eb] _ So it was all original to me they [G] had a
Picture of somebody a girl and a guy running [F] away from a flying saucer, so
[G] We tried to grab it off them to use as an album cover
[F] we're gonna this is gonna be our cover and [E] that eventually inspired [G] the