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Rock Lobster

"Rock Lobster"
Rock Lobster - B-52s.jpg
Warner Bros. vinyl rerelease
Single by The B-52's
from the album The B-52's
B-side
  • "52 Girls" (DB)
  • "6060-842" (Warner Bros.)
  • "Private Idaho" (Warner Bros.)
  • "Runnin' Around" (Island)
  • "Planet Claire" (Island)
Released April 1978
Format 7"
Recorded February 1978
Genre
Length 4:52 (single)
6:49 (album)
Label
Writer(s)
Producer(s)
The B-52's singles chronology
"Rock Lobster"
(1978)
"Planet Claire"
(1979)

"Rock Lobster" is a song written by Fred Schneider and Ricky Wilson, two members of The B-52's. It was produced in two versions, one by DB Records released in April 1978, and a longer version, which was part of the band's 1979 self-titled debut album, released by Warner Bros. The song became one of their signature tunes and it helped launch the band's success.

"Rock Lobster" was the band's first single to appear on the Billboard Hot 100, where it reached No. 56. A major hit in Canada, the single went all the way to No. 1 in the RPM national singles chart. Its follow-up was "Private Idaho," in October 1980, which reached No. 74 in the US. It was well received by critics and was placed at No. 147 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The DB Records single version lasts 4:37 and is rawer and faster than the 1979 Warner single version. It has, however, almost the same lyrics of the second version, just including some extra lines in the listing of marine animals. The 1979 single version itself is an edit from the album version released in 1979, which lasts about seven minutes and contains an extra verse.

Its lyrics include nonsensical lines about a beach party and excited rants about real or imagined marine animals ("There goes a dog-fish, chased by a cat-fish, in flew a sea robin, watch out for that piranha, there goes a narwhal, here comes a bikini whale!"), accompanied by absurd, fictional noises attributed to them (provided by Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson — Pierson providing the higher-pitched noises and Wilson the lower-pitched ones); the chorus consists of the words "Rock Lobster!" repeated over and over on top of a keyboard line.


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Wikipedia

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