The
Laughing Policeman / Suspicion
(The Flying Lizards
under the pseudonym 'The Suspicions')
7" single
(UK) 1980 Arista Records
Ltd. (ARIST361) - Produced by David Cunningham
Side A
01) The
Laughing Policeman [2:30] [Grey] (Hillside Publications
- St. Giles Ltd.)
Side B
02) Suspicion
[2:30] [Cunningham] (Artsongs, Ltd.)
Inscriptions in vinyl: side A) "A RROSE" side B) "PIN STRIPE"
Description:
Next to David Cunningham's "Grey Scale" album, this odd 7" is probably
the most hard-to-find Flying Lizards (related) release out there (exactly
333 sold). I became aware of it only after seeing it listed on a Cunningham
discography - credited as "The Flying Lizards under the pseudonym
'The Suspicions'." Apparently, the story is that Cunningham submitted this
Flying Lizards song to Virgin in 1980 and they were not interested in releasing
it, so he took the song to Arista who released it on a 7" under the name
The Suspicions.
"The Laughing Policeman" song is indeed a cover
- an ancient English music-hall song credited to someone named "Grey".
For those Yanks not familiar with this style of pub sing-along, this subverted
version will sound even more silly, surreal and odd. It's almost like something
you would hear on a children's record or maybe sounding like something
Monty Python would do, just processed carefully through the Lizards' wack-o
filter.
The material on the
EP as a whole unequivocally has the Flying Lizards' early sound. The bombastic
"The
Laughing Policeman" uses many of the musicians from the first LP (Steve
Beresford - bass, David Toop - guitar, Dave Solomon - drums), starting
off with a police whistle, then a chorus of whistlers, and then breaking
out into an uptempo, almost ska-ish beat using guitar, heavy bass, various
percussion, mouth organ(!) and occasionally accordion(?). The hilariously
over-the-top vocals (imagine a female children's morning TV show host with
an upper-class British accent leading the kids in a song - on speed) are
by a woman named Kit Hain, who laughs maniacally between the verses (perhaps
this was done in the original version too). Between the vocals, David throws
in samples of ray gun and toy sounds, mangled electric guitar, radio voices
and sounds of something being broken apart. The lyrics are about (surprise!)
a local policeman who can never stop laughing. If I had to pick one Lizards
song to compare it to (or at least it's manic mood and frantic tempo),
it would have to be "Mandelay Song". In contrast, the soothing B-side consists
of the innocuous sounding
"Suspicion", a dense, minimal, droning
instrumental composed with heavily processed samples.
Availability: Out of print collector's item. Very, very hard to find.