One Hit Wonders Hall of Fame: Nervous Norvus
Jimmy Drake was one of the unsung "song poem composers" who set the poems of aspiring writers to music and recorded it on acetate disc. Never intending to be a performer, Drake none-the-less wrote and performed the classic Transfusion, taking the stage name Nervous Norvus. It was a huge hit in the Summer of 1956.
Transfusion is a hipster car-crash-drunk-driving song that rattled the censors. Scandalous for the time, it's a first-person account of a car accident and the driver asking for either booze ("Shoot the juice to me, Bruce!") or blood ("Slip the blood to me, Bud!"). It paved the way (pun intended) for later teen death songs like Dead Man's Curve, Leader Of The Pack, and Tell Laura I Love Her.
Read more about Drake's career and the world of song poem composers here
Nervous Norvus - Transfusion
4 Comments:
Remember the song, "Warm Leatherette"?
I loved dancing to that song.
It was awesome!
By 
, at
11:48 PM
Which version? The Grace Jones, or the original by The Normal? Both are great, but Grace's has a little more of a groove.
By 
MadCatJoey, at
6:08 AM
What a long ride from "Transfusion" to "DOA" by Bloodrock. If you don't rememeber that almost eight minutes of mayhem, maybe you're better off.
By , at
10:03 PM
I remember "DOA." For those who don't, it's about a car crash narrated by one of the victims. He goes on to tell how he's bleeding to death, losing an arm, etc. Gloomy stuff.
By MadCatJoey, at
10:11 PM
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