Everything You Know Is Wrong

Everything You Know Is Wrong
Studio album by The Firesign Theatre
Released 1974
Genre Comedy
Length 42:00
Label Columbia
Producer The Firesign Theatre
The Firesign Theatre chronology

The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra
(1974)
Everything You Know Is Wrong
(1974)
In the Next World, You're on Your Own
(1975)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
The New Rolling Stone Record Guide

Everything You Know Is Wrong is the 8th comedy album by the Firesign Theatre released in October 1974 on Columbia Records.

Detailed track information and commentary

Like the group's other albums, Everything You Know Is Wrong is made up of a series of surreal skits that make satiric comments on contemporary culture. This album addresses and parodies pseudoscientific beliefs of the mid-1970s. The skits are connected to, or occurring in, "Nude Age Enterprises", the recording studio inside the trailer home of "Happy" Harry Cox in the fictional town of Hellmouth, California. Cox (played by Phil Austin) records seminars and assorted reports, similar to books by such authors as Erich von Däniken, which he calls his "mind-breaking records", to promote the "New Age" and other counterculture beliefs ("Dogs flew spaceships! The Aztecs invented the vacation! Men and women are the same sex! Our forefathers took drugs! Your brain is not the boss! Yes! That's right! Everything you know is wrong!").

Other notable characters include:

Video

After it was recorded, a movie version was made, with the group lip-syncing to the album. The cinematographer for this was Allen Daviau, who later filmed E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The film was released on a VHS format videotape in 1993 by The Firesign Theatre. (UPC barcode 735885 100131.) The group showed the film at Stanford University and took questions and answers.

The Seeker's shirt reads "Malmborg In Plano". This saying was first used (several times) in I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus.

Cultural references

The "Official stolen government training film of the secret plan to deal with an alien uprising" is a parody of, among other things: General Curtis LeMay's statement that the Communists of North Vietnam should be "bombed back to the stone age". LeMay is also noteworthy for having furiously informed Barry Goldwater that he was not permitted to access rumored secret UFO information supposedly being kept at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.

The travelogue TV show interview with Buzz and Bunny Crumhunger is a parody of an early 60s series called The Golden Voyage, hosted by travelogue film producer Jack Douglas . The show featured couples narrating 8mm silent home movies of their vacations in exotic locations.

Track listing

Side one

  1. "Side 1" – 20:45

Side two

  1. "Side 2" – 21:15

Issues and reissues

This album was originally released simultaneously on LP, 8 Track, Quadrophonic LP, and quadrophonic 8 track cartridge.

It has been re-released on CD at least once

References