The Monstrefact: The Goo Goo Muck

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses the Goo Goo Muck from the song of the same title made popular by The Cramps…

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the
Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time. Now.
I frequently do these episodes about monsters from mythology, films
and comic books, but I figured I'd tried different medium today. Music.

(00:34):
I previously discussed this was probably a couple of years ago,
count Drugula from the song by of the same title
by the band Electric Wizard. This time we're going to
be discussing the Googo Monk. The origin story for this
monster goes back to a nineteen sixty two novelty horror
rockabilly tune by Ronnie Cook and the Gay Lads. This

(00:57):
was we have to remember sixty two as Boris Pickett's
Monster Mash, so novelty songs about monsters were all the rage.
Cook along with Ed James, are the credited songwriters. Most listeners, however,
are going to be familiar with the grittier nineteen eighty
one cover by The Cramps, the legendary psychobilly band founded

(01:21):
by the late Lux Interior and Poison Ivy. They'd already
featured two monster themed songs on their previous album I
Was a Teenage Werewolf and Zombie Dance. There would be
many more to come, so the cover here fit them
like a leather glove. As louder As Scott Rowley discussed
in a twenty twenty two article Cannibalism, the Cramps and

(01:43):
that Wednesday dance scene, the weird story of Googoo Muck,
the Cramps took the track in a slightly darker direction
via their Gotha billy style and some subtle lyrical tweaks.
While the original version of google Muck is concerned with
a teenage transformation into a cannibal monster with implied sexual connotations,

(02:06):
the Cramps really leaned into all of this. Their titular
googoo Muck is strongly sexual in its pursuit of female
human prey. Now I'm not going to walk you through
the entire song and its lyrics by all means, go
listen to either version wherever you get your music, but
I'll do my best to summarize here. The Googoomuk is

(02:28):
described as the result of a monstrous were wolf like
transformation brought out by lunar activity, strong were wolf vibes.
The Googoomuk describes itself as a teenage beast, and this
of course references a lot of the old like I
was a teenage were wolf, you know, I was a
teenage Frankenstein, and so forth, that whole trend that we've

(02:48):
discussed on Weird House Cinema. But then the lyrics also
reference tigers rather than wolves. This certainly brings to mind
the various war tiger and tiger transformation tales for parts
of the world where the tiger stands tall or at
least once stood tall as the pre eminent man swear.
This detail also probably speaks to the Eastern gazing quasi

(03:12):
tiki origins of the song. The lyrics, for instance, also
reference headhunters. Now, one interesting factor here is that the
only description we get of the monster's body is that
it boasts quote a way out body underneath that head.
Now this is pretty vague, but it makes me imagine
a were tiger who still looks perhaps comically like a

(03:34):
human from the neck up. But it also brings to
mind various traditions of creatures like the sphinx and the
manticore involving hybrid beast bodies with a human face or head. However,
considering the sexually charged nature of the song, it probably
speaks as much to the idea of bodily lust contained
beneath the character's streak clothing you know, you know, aching

(03:57):
for release. Scott Rawley speaks to all of this is
while expressly tying the Cramps Google Monk to lust, hormones
and frothing fluids, and by many estimates, this sums up
something very key to the Cramps whole vibe, the intersection
of horror and horniness, full of double entendres and references
to retro weird cinema. Tune in for additional episodes of

(04:20):
The Monster Fact the Artifact or Animalist Stupendium each week.
As always, you can email us at contact at stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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