B-side The Sabres of Paradise Format 45 Record Genre New wave | Released 1982 Recorded 1982 Length 3:22 | |
"John Wayne Is Big Leggy" is a controversial song written by, and recorded by the band Haysi Fantayzee. It was their debut single and most successful hit, charting in the UK, Germany and Austria. It gained notoriety for its treatment of the taboo subject of anal sex.
Contents
Themes
The song was a combination of political satire and sexual humour wrapped in nursery rhyme style lyrics. The protagonist, John Wayne, is having sexual intercourse with a Native American female. When Wayne's bandolier restricts their intimacy, she suggests he removes it. He refuses and suggests he sodomises her instead:
This surreal image is intended as a comment on the treatment of indigenous people during the European colonisation and was written after Healy read the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by historian Dee Brown. Wayne represents the European colonist, while his partner is the Native American people.
It was an allegory for treatment of which the white settlers used, but on the Native American Indians. However, I wrote it like John Wayne having anal sex with a squaw. I thought this was hilarious!
Unusually for a song with explicit sexual content in the 1980s, the song escaped being banned from broadcast by the BBC, was playlisted on BBC Radio 1 and the band performed the song twice on Top of the Pops and on Saturday morning children's television. The song, with its "Shotgun, gimme gimme low down fun boy, okay, showdown" intro was taken to be a nonsensical novelty song about cowboys.
People kept saying we were writing nonsense lyrics but we didn't explain anything because, if they knew, it wouldn't get played.
Reception and success
The single was well received in the British and European music press. Smash Hits described it as a Wild West shoot-out between Madness, Bow Wow Wow and Altered Images. Allmusic state that it is "an entertaining one for anyone with a taste for early '80s ephemera" The song was listed in Smash Hits' top 10 lyrics of the 80s.
Boy George, who had been a school friend of Jeremy Healy and fellow Blitz club regular, spoke of his jealousy of Haysi Fantayzee's success:
To add to the depression, Haysi Fantayzee's debut single, "John Wayne Is Big Leggy," was being played on Radio One. It became the soundtrack to my despair, slowly climbing the charts and staying there for ten weeks, niggling at my psyche. I knew it was a good record too. Clever, original, and very annoying. I wanted to retire when I saw the video on Saturday-morning kids' TV. I couldn't believe they had a video and we didn't.
The song reached number 11 in the UK chart, number 3 in the German chart and number 13 in Austria.
Cover versions
"John Wayne is Big Leggy" has been recorded by German band Bienenstich. This German language version is entitled "John Wayne ist der Größte".