Released August 13, 1980 Genre New wave
synthpop Label Warner Bros. | Format 7" Length 2:37 | |
B-side "Snowball"
"Turn Around" | ||
"Whip It" is a song by the American new wave band Devo, written by Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale. It was the second single from the band's third studio album, Freedom of Choice (1980). There were two 7" single releases of "Whip It", one backed with a remix of the track "Snowball" (which appears on Freedom of Choice) and one backed with "Turn Around". "Whip It" was Devo's biggest hit, peaking at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and No. 11 on the Canadian Singles chart. As a single it reached No. 77 on the Australian Singles chart, but it was also the key selling point of the DEV-O Live EP, which reached number one in that country's singles charts.
Contents
It is ranked number 62 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the '80s as well as number 15 on the same channel's 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the '80s.
Composition
"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 six oscillator synthesizer, custom made by Moog Music for Devo. The whip sound was made with an EML ElectroComp 500 synthesizer, Neumann KM 84 and U 87 condenser mics.On an episode of the VH1 show TrueSpin, Gerald Casale revealed that the lead guitar riff from "Whip It" is based on the riff from "Oh, Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison with the beat moved to the back.
Gerald Casale states that the lyrics were written by him "as an imitation of Thomas Pynchon's parodies in his book Gravity's Rainbow." 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 about then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter, as Mothersbaugh describes in an interview on To the Best of Our Knowledge. According to MusicNotes.com, "Whip It" is composed in the key of E major.
Promotion and release
"Whip It" debuted at a live concert on December 29, 1979, in Santa Cruz, 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.
Music 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 a woman, was inspired by an article in a 1962 issue of Dude magazine. In an interview for Songfacts, 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 woman's clothes off while the band plays in the corral.'"
In the video, Devo wear 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. Bob Mothersbaugh ("Bob 1") plays a Gibson Les Paul with an inverted horn, Bob Casale ("Bob 2") plays a red Rheem Kee Bass, and Alan Myers plays a set of Synare 3 drum synthesizers.
Not surprisingly, the S&M overtones of the video caused controversy. Devo was cut from a January 30, 1981, appearance on the television show The Midnight Special hosted by Lily Tomlin. After viewing the video Tomlin deemed it offensive to women, and according to Gerald Casale, "She promptly cancelled us off the special, she said she wouldn't go on if Devo was on her show." Despite this, "Whip It" received heavy rotation on MTV after its introduction in 1981.
The video was featured in the 2005 video game Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3.
Track listing
- "Whip It" – 2:38
- "Snowball" – 2:29
- "Gates of Steel" – 3:27
- "Whip It" – 2:37
- "Turn Around" – 2:10