They're Coming to Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!
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They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa! is a 1966 novelty song by Napoleon XIV, re-issued by Warner Bros. Records in 1973. Initially it was controversial enough to get the record banned in several markets. The song, mostly set to a rhythm tapped out on a snare drum, deals with mental illness, brought about – so it seemed, at first – by the singer's lover:
Remember when you ran away/and I got on my knees/ and begged you not to leave because I'd go berserk?/Well, you left me anyhow/and then the days got worse and worse/and now you see I've gone completely out of my mind!...
Musically, "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" could be called a very early rap record: the singer speaks rhythmically rather than singing the lyric, over a spare, multitracked percussion track dominated by drum kit and tambourines with a siren sounding in and out of the "chorus"; the vocal glissando, signifying the vocalist's plunge into insanity, was achieved by Samuels manipulating tape recording speeds, a variation on the technique used by Ross Bagdasarian in creating the original Chipmunks novelty hits. Supposedly the song's thumping beat derives from or was inspired by the Scottish marching song The Campbells Are Coming. [1]
Furthering the theme of insanity, the flip or B-Side of the single was called "!Aaah-aH yawA eM ekaT oT gnimoC er'yehT" and the singer billed as "VIX noelopaN"---it was the A-side played in reverse; in fact, the entire label affixed to that B-side was printed backward.
In 1990, Lard, the project band formed by Jello Biafra and members of Ministry, covered "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" on their The Last Temptation Of Reid album, adding a guitar part and an extra verse (written by Biafra) to the original song and arrangement.
In the early 1990s, musical parodist Paul Shanklin created a parody of "They're Coming to Take Me Away" for the "Ross Perot Update" frequently used by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show to introduce Perot-related news items during Perot's political heyday.
In 2005, Sascha Mario Klein, the sole member of Neuroticfish, a band whose style borrows from futurepop and synthpop genres, as well as other types of electronic music, covered "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa" on the album Gelb. He created his version using the original lyrics and a bassline sampled from the theme of the BBC television series Doctor Who.
A Beavis and Butthead episode entitled "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Huh Huh" references the song.
The Finnish Heavy Metal band Children of Bodom sometimes open their live performances with a recording of the first few verses of this song.
Also covered in a Demo CD in 2001 by Stone Sour entitled The Death Dance of the Frog Fish.
