Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Misfits - "Where Eagles Dare" (forgotten song)

"Where Eagles Dare" is the B-side of the Misfits's 1979 "Night of the Living Dead" single (although the links below are of the overdubbed version on the 1985 compilation "Legacy of Brutality"). The Misfits were the progenitors of the "horror punk" sub-genre -- think sci-fi and zombie movies set to music (the single title is a reference to the canonical zombie film and it was released on Plan 9 Records which is a reference to Plan 9 From Outer Space).

I don't believe the Misfits ever received much in the way of radio or MTV airplay. I'm not sure they ever had a "hit", although candidates might include "She", "Die, Die My Darling", and "Last Caress". In fact, most people probably learned of the Misfits posthumously from the Metallica covers of the latter two songs on Garage, Inc. and Garage Days Re-revisited.

This was Glenn Danzig's first band, and his subsequent bands (Samhain and Danzig) would become more metal and less campy (or less "intentionally campy" anyway). I was never a huge Misfits fan during my metal & punk years and I didn't hear this song until several years later. Despite all this, I think "Where Eagles Dare" has the strongest hook of all their songs that I've heard, but without sacrificing their trademark ferocity. The profanity in the chorus pretty much assures that you won't hear this elsewhere, so give it a listen with links below.

Links: YouTube and last.fm.

2012-07-21 Edit: Clearly this song needs a slow, acoustic cover version...  Check out David Pajo's version of "Where Eagles Dare" -- surprisingly good!

No comments:

Post a Comment