TS: "Gut Feeling/(Slap Your Mammy)" vs. "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA"

I like Gut Feeling more than Smart Patrol, but Mr. DNA more than Slap Your Mammy.

But I like QAWNMAWAD more than DNFTF, so Gut Feeling wins!

Gut Feeling is like genuinely beautiful

Without disparaging the majesty of Gut Feeling/(Slap Your Mammy) one bit (this thread needs the Max's 1977 video of that song posted on it before too long), the answer has to be Smart Patrol/Mr DNA.

Subjectively, it is their best song.
Objectively, it is their most auspicious song.

The evidence is as follows (please stick "probably" at the end of each entry b/c I've thought about this a lot but checked nothing):

1. It is the longest song on any of their albums.
2. It is the oldest song on any of their studio albums, being performed earlier than any song on their studio albums.
3. It contains every well-known Devo lyrical/thematic trope: potatoes, rubber, de-evolution, Devo, futurism, it mocks paternalism and deals with the futility of being a wage slave, there's the will-to-power stuff...etc
4. It has appeared on more Devo releases than any other song - it's on most of their live releases.
5. This is the only Devo song where Bob Mothersbaugh takes a full-on, old-school rock guitar solo over an entire playthrough of the verse & chorus. This awesome solo is only made more excellent by the restraint displayed by restricting that kind of thing to this one song only.
6. This is the only Devo song where the vocals are equally shared between the three vocalists - they each sing the verse once through while taking turns doing the response part. In the Mr DNA part they swap lines throughout.
7. Actually the entire arrangement of the song is very unusual seeing as how it kicks off with repeating the verse of Smart Patrol three times, then the chorus three times followed by the guitar solo before the Mr DNA bit.

And...to stimulate debate, I think Smart Patrol/Mr DNA is one song, while Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy is two songs played as a medley. I don't know of them playing SP/MrDNA separately after it had been completed as a single song but they do play Gut Feeling without (Slap Your Mammy) - probably because it segues nicely into Gates of Steel.

Should also mention that the prefered version is not the album version but any old live bootleg 77-81 (6.5/10 sound quality perfectly acceptable).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNxURxqIv80

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYwL3SmcnB4

Gut/Mammy easily.

I think I remember hearing Jarvis Cocker say that lots of provincial bands in the late 70s/early 80s would do a cover of Gut Feeling because it has relatively few chords but still sounds impressive - is there anyone here whose memory extends far back enough to comment on this?

Gut Felling is the best Devo song, so there you go.

Gut Feeling, even. Though Gut Felling sounds like it'd be good too.

there is SO MUCH great Devo bootleg/demo stuff from the period before the first album, even aside from what ended up on the Hardcore comps, proto version of 'Mr DNA' here, for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I_vUF69rgs

I have to go with "Gut Feeling" but this is seriously pitting my #1 and #2 favorite Devo tunes against each other. I may have to think about this some more.

I mean the opening piano bit to "Gut Feeling" is just so weirdly pretty in a way that Devo never really attempted again (until "No Place Like Home"?), and the last two minutes are some of the most intense in their whole catalogue, as great as "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA" is it doesn't quite reach THAT height

I think I remember hearing Jarvis Cocker say that lots of provincial bands in the late 70s/early 80s would do a cover of Gut Feeling because it has relatively few chords but still sounds impressive - is there anyone here whose memory extends far back enough to comment on this?

Hah- I did experience this - some high school chums of mine from Ayrshire circa 1986 had Gut Feeling in their repetoire, and also Mongoloid (pronounced "mingaloid" for hilarious laughs).

Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA is my favourite Devo song.

If all their songs were as good as these they'd be amongst my favourite bands

Let us always remember them this way, and not dwell on the many, many errors in judgement they committed subsequently.

Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA is my favourite Devo song.

― Kitchen Person, Wednesday, July 22, 2015 12:36 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also there's always been something about the word "Mammy" I don't like, which isn't Devo's fault but there you good

http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/Images/Ye%20canny%20Shove%20yer%20Grannie%20Tune%20%28800%29_tcm4-573386.jpg

Devo rules so hard. Damn. Amazing that Mark is soundtracking children's television these days.

Had to vote "Gut Feeling" cos that intro is so epic and the vocals just have this raw bite to them. I love "Mr. DNA" tho, mostly cos of the call-and-response vocals. Production wise it seems like a step down.

fwiw Gut Feeling and Mr DNA are principally Mark Mothersbaugh compositions while Smart Patrol and Slap Your Mammy are by Gerald V Casale.

I think this is my favourite version of 'Smart Patrol', from 1974 apparently?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmIf9UO80Oo

I first heard it on this bootleg that I found in a record store when I was a teen, I don't think I even knew what a bootleg was back then but I bought it because it had two tracks that weren't on the Devo albums I owned, it blew my mind when I realised that it was different versions of all the other songs as well

http://devo-obsesso.com/html/12in-pgs/bootlegs/sing-devonia.html

it was kind of cool not just being able to look it up on the internet straight away to contextualise it - what on earth is this weird alien thing? where did it come from?

the opening piano bit to "Gut Feeling" is just so weirdly pretty in a way that Devo never really attempted again (until "No Place Like Home"?)

'Out Of Sync' is Devo's prettiest moment imo, but I think lots of their songs are pretty!

I must have listened to 'Chango' and 'Plain Truth' dozens of times before I realised that the latter is a re-write of the former, 'Plain Truth' brings out the prettiness more I guess, but they are both pretty!

It's odd thinking about how much of their post 1980 work is re-writes of stuff they did in the 70s, all the way up to that song about Mitt Romney's dog that was a version of 'Doghouse Doghouse', or just slogans + bits of dialogue from videos that cropped up later in song lyrics

terre thaemlitz's version of "gut feeling/slap your mammy" is lovely (and not on youtube or i'd link to it here!)

Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA is my favourite Devo song.

― Kitchen Person, Wednesday, July 22, 2015 1:36 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ this. so amazing. have always wanted to be in a band that covered it, especially the latter part. the awesome rotation around the three repeated lines, all the nervous intense energy in that. whole song feels like it's whirling around and around, daring itself not to fly apart. and of course the devo trademark vibe of 1950s positivity slathered over in layers of plastic and nuclear radiation to the point where all the paranoia and sex and authoritarianism of the original becomes more visible and more ridiculous, arriving at anarchy along the way. absolutely my one "devo and what they're about" desert island song. "gut feeling" is cool and all. like an extended, devo-flavored take on a surf instrumental song. but it's never gotten my blood worked up like that.

yeah prophylactic tour. my fave also.

'Out Of Sync' is Devo's prettiest moment imo, but I think lots of their songs are pretty!

I must have listened to 'Chango' and 'Plain Truth' dozens of times before I realised that the latter is a re-write of the former, 'Plain Truth' brings out the prettiness more I guess, but they are both pretty!

It's odd thinking about how much of their post 1980 work is re-writes of stuff they did in the 70s, all the way up to that song about Mitt Romney's dog that was a version of 'Doghouse Doghouse', or just slogans + bits of dialogue from videos that cropped up later in song lyrics

Yeah "prettiness" is kind of an odd thing to talk about this way because I think there's a lot of it in songs like say "Snowball". I think they just don't go for it too often. "Plain Truth" I kinda forgot about, like everything else on Total Devo. But I do remember it now, cuz yeah last time I heard "Chango" I did think exactly that. On a similar note I think "Happy Guy" sounds like a rewrite of Gary Numan's "Bombers".

The album by Jihad Jerry and the Evildoers has new versions of a few old Devo tunes - "I've Been Refused", "Find Out", and "I Need a Chick". The first two at least are awesome. They certainly re-appropriated a lot of the non-album stuff though they do have an unusually rich catalogue in that way. Surprised "Modern Life" never got a rework!

Been listening to a lot of live Devo on youtube thanks to this thread. It occurd to me that the voice of Booji Boy is almost a parody of Mickey Mouse.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wow.

That was close!