Signs (Five Man Electrical Band song)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Signs" is a 1970 song that greatly popularized the somewhat unknown Canadian rock group simply dubbed Five Man Electrical Band, who wrote and performed it for their second album, Good-byes and Butterflies. The lyrics explain how our world is filled with simplistic literature and express many difficult situations that the common man experiences.

"Signs" was originally released in 1970 as the B-side to the unsuccessful single "Hello Melinda Goodbye". Re-released in 1971 on the A-side, "Signs" reached number 3 on the Billboard charts.

The song was famously covered and recorded live by Tesla for their Five Man Acoustical Jam album in 1990, peaking at number 8 on the Pop charts. This cover had some minor changes to the lyrics: the line "blockin' out the scenery" was changed to "...fuckin' up the scenery", and "made up my own little sign" was changed to "made up my own fuckin' sign" (at the time, profanity was becoming more commonplace in music).

The opening line of the song was sampled by Fatboy Slim for his song "Don't Let The Man Get You Down", from his Palookaville album.