By 1978, with the Beatles eight years in his rearview mirror, John Lennon had stopped making music — and found himself vacationing apart from his wife and muse, Yoko Ono. That same year, a group of eclectic misfits from Athens, Ga., who called themselves the B-52s released their first single, “Rock Lobster.”
The song was released 40 years ago this week on a small, now-defunct label called DB Records. It was later rerecorded and rereleased as part of the band’s 1979 eponymous debut album on Warner Bros.
It’s a bizarre tune containing nonsensical lyrics and circuslike surf music, but it would prove deeply important to the B-52s (it launched them into stardom) and Lennon (it inspired him to team up with Ono and record the last songs of his life).
The B-52s were a new wave band before new wave was an official genre, and “Rock Lobster” hit the masses like a ton of psychedelic bricks. Delirious sounds pumping out of a Farfisa organ flutter and spin around a droning backbeat. Vocalists Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson sing “ohh” and “ahh” in their best imitation of fish during the song’s nearly seven-minute run. At the end, Wilson shrieks like a dolphin. There’s more than a little cowbell.