Whip It

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"Whip It" is the title of a 1980 single by the New Wave band Devo. It appears on the album Freedom of Choice. There were two 7" single releases of "Whip It", one backed with the track "Snowball" (which appears on "Freedom of Choice," though an alternate version) and one backed with "Turn Around" (a song later covered by Nirvana). "Whip It" was Devo's biggest hit, and peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

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[edit] The song

"Whip It" is built on a motorik beat, similar to tracks by Neu!. The lead instrument is a Minimoog synthesizer. The bass is performed with a custom synthesizer made by Moog Music for Devo, known as the Devobox, and is built from two Minimoogs. The whip sound was made with an EML ElectroComp 500 synthesizer. On an episode of the VH1 show TrueSpin, Gerald V. Casale revealed that the lead guitar riff from "Whip It" is based on the riff from "Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison with the beat moved to the back.

The lyrics were written by Mark Mothersbaugh in a style similar to Thomas Pynchon's poems in Gravity's Rainbow. They're a sort of mocking parody of upbeat, self-help poems. The lyrics evoke a working class desire to pull oneself up and to overcome adversity. The song has violent undertones, and Devo has often described it as a mockery of Ronald Reagan (or of the foreign policy of Jimmy Carter as Mothersbaugh mentions in an interview on To The Best of our Knowledge[1]) and his policies. However, many people took the lyrics at face value, interpreting the song as a paean to masturbation and sadomasochism, or a reference to inhaling nitrous oxide from whipped cream cans (taken from the name "whippet", used to describe the nitrous chargers for whipped cream dispensers).

"Whip It" debuted at a live concert on New Year's Eve 1979 in Long Beach, California. The first performance included a synthesizer solo taken from the early Devo song "Chango." This performance was recorded and is available as a bootleg. A demo version was recorded in 1980 and later released in 2000 on the compilation Recombo DNA released by Rhino Handmade.

[edit] The video

Devo funded the music video for "Whip It" with $15,000 USD of their own money. The main visual of the video, Mark Mothersbaugh whipping the clothes off of a woman (Annerose Bücklers), was inspired by an article in a 1962 issue of "Dude" magazine. In an interview for Song Facts, Casale explains "There was a feature article on a guy who had been an actor and fell on hard times, he wasn't getting parts anymore. He moved with his wife to Arizona, opened a dude ranch and charged people money to come hang out at the ranch. Every day at noon in the corral, for entertainment, he'd whip his wife's clothes off with a 12-foot bullwhip. She sewed the costumes and put them together with Velcro. The story was in the magazine about how good he was and how he never hurt her. We had such a big laugh about it, we said, 'OK, that's the basis for the video. We'll have these cowboys drinking beer and cheering Mark on as he's in the barnyard whipping this pioneer women's clothes off while the band plays in the corral.'"

In the video, Devo wears black, sleeveless turtlenecks, and their famous Energy Dome headgear. When the video begins, all the members, except for Mark Mothersbaugh, wear the turtlenecks pulled over their faces. During the performance, each member lowers the turtleneck. Robert Casale (Bob 2) plays a red Rheem Key Bass, and Alan Myers plays a set of Synare electronic drum pads.

Unsurprisingly, the S&M overtones of the video caused controversy. Devo was forced to abandon a television appearance after the host deemed the video offensive to women. Despite this, "Whip It" received heavy rotation on MTV due to both high popularity and a general lack of videos in its library.

[edit] Alternate versions

Devo recorded an instrumental "E-Z Listening" version of "Whip It" as part of a set of music be played before concerts. These appear on the 1987 CD E-Z Listening Disc, released by Rykodisc. The E-Z version of "Whip It" is also played over the closing credits to the Devo home video "We're All Devo". An extended remix, known as the "Prime Cuts" mix was released on Cassette. In 1993, the collection Hot Potatoes: The Best of Devo featured a 9 minute remix of "Whip It" called the (HMS&M Mix). This remix uses samples from a movie version of H.M.S. Pinafore. There exists an instrumental Dub mix of this track as well on a 12" single. A remix by DJ 7Up has appeared on P2P networks. In 2004, the remix album What Is Hip? Remix Project Vol. 1 had yet another remix of "Whip It"

"Whip It" has been used in several commercials, for products such as Pringles, Twix, Gateway computers, and most recently Swiffer cloths. Due to the nature of Devo's contract with Warner Brothers, they do not own the rights to the original recording of "Whip It." Devo often re-records their songs for use in advertising, and for the Swiffer ad, the band also agreed to change the lyrics as well. One example of the changes is the line "You must whip it" which was replaced by "You need Swiffer."

Another version also appeared on the video game Donkey Konga. However, this version was not done by Devo but rather by another band signed on by Nintendo or Namco.

Covered in season 1 of the sci-fi Sliders in the episode The King Is Back (Sliders) by the female country group the "Del Rubio Sisters".

The song was parodied in the 1999 movie Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, when Doctor Evil tries to silence his son, Scott Evil, by saying (among other things) "When a problem comes along, you must ZIP IT! Zip it real good."

In 2005, the song was covered by the Devo- and Disney-sponsored band Devo 2.0. The group is composed of five pre-teen actors who sing, dance, and mime playing instruments along. The instrumentals are performed by the original Devo members. They have attempted to remove some of the adult innuendo from the song and its music video.

[edit] In the media

A * denotes a cover version being used for that occurrence.

  • Los Prisioneros made a Spanish cover of Whip It called "Azota" (Whip It in Spanish).

[edit] External links

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