Music / The Fugs Second Album

I'm never gonna go to Vietnam

I prefer stay here and screw your mum

— "Doin' All Right"

The Fugs' Second Album is the second studio album by The Fugs, released in 1966. It is the follow-up to The Fugs First Album. The original LP was simply titled The Fugs, but to avoid confusion the CD release re-titled it The Fugs Second Album.

Due to better production and a more rock-oriented sound it's considered by many to be their best album. It is best known for fan favorites such as "Kill For Peace" and the lengthy and atmospheric "Virgin Forest". Back in the day it even managed to chart on number 95 in Billboard's list of "Top Pop Albums."

Tracklist

Side One

1. "Frenzy" (2:00)
2. "I Want To Know" (2:00)
3. "Skin Flowers" (2:20)
4. "Group Grope" (3:40)
5. "Coming Down" (3:46)
6. "Dirty Old Man" (2:49)

Side Two

1. "Kill For Peace" (2:07)
2. "Morning, Morning" (2:07)
3. "Doin' All Right" (2:37)
4. "Virgin Forest" (11:09)

The CD release adds 5 bonus tracks.

Personnel

• Ed Sanders: vocals
• Tuli Kupferberg: vocals, maracas, tambourine
• John Anderson: vocals, bass guitar
• Ken Weaver: vocals, conga, drums
• Lee Crabtree: piano, celeste, bells
• Vinny Leary: guitar, bass
• Pete Kearney: guitar
• Betsy Klein: vocals

Group Trope

• The Aggressive Drug Dealer: "Dirty Old Man"
  Handin' out joints to the kids at school
  Givin' out pictures and porn and pills
• Alliterative Title: "Group Grope", "Morning, Morning".
• All Men Are Perverts: You really start to believe it after hearing most of the vulgar lyrics.
• All Women Are Prudes: "Virgin Forest", sort of...
  Man: "Nice in day in jungle today, feel good. Me want woman! Look a here, what's this walking along the jungle trail here. Hey, you woman?"
  Woman: "Me woman."
  Man: "I'm not so sure, I can't tell. You're wearing your clothes on."
  Woman: "That's how you know I'm a woman."
  Man: "I'll take you word for it. How about you and me, premarital you-know-what? Okay? In manner of canine, okay? We down here on trail."
  (Interlude where funny sex noises are heard)
  Man: "You come already, me not come yet."
• Alternative Rock: In the same way of their debut this album was one of the first underground rock albums.
• Avant-Garde Music: "Virgin Forest" is one long epic experimental composition, full with sound effects, odd instruments, bizarre lyrics and imitations.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: "Virgin Forest". The Tarzan archetype has sex with a woman, but after she leaves him before he can reach orgasm he gets an idea:
  You come already, me not come yet. I fix that. Hey chimpo, come here, chimp! Good boy, I mean: good girl. Um, good chimp, swinging chimp, groovy chimp. Chimp come, come, we come together.
• Call-and-Response Song: "Dirty Old Man" has the protagonist shout out his lines, while the band repeats them back.
• Cradle of Loneliness: "Morning Morning" where both the morning and evening bring the protagonist grief because he feels lonesome.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The album cover is in black-and-white.
• Dirty Communists: "Dirty Old Man" provides us with a very literal example.
  Communist literature in my hands
  Well I guess I better go, I see the campus cop's coming
  I better split now
  Remember Leon Trotsky!
• Dirty Old Man: "Dirty Old Man"
  Hangin' out by the schoolyard gate
  Lookin' up every dress I can
  (...) Pinchin' all the bosoms I can
• Drugs Are Bad: The dirty old man in "Dirty Old Man" sells joints to school children and in "Coming Down" the effects of coming down from a drug trip are addressed.
• Epic Rocking: The 11:09 "Virgin Forest"
• Evil Laugh: The dirty old man cackles out an evil laugh halfway "Dirty Old Man".
• Face on the Cover: The band during a concert.
• The Immodest Orgasm: "Group Grope" has an interlude where the singer moans and sighs, accompanied by a young woman.
• Intercourse with You:
  • "Frenzy"
  We got baskets, baskets of love
  Deep inside your belly
  When you feel my laser beam
  Screaming and moaning with frenzy
  Panting like a primitive beast
  • "Skin Flowers"
  We say yes to night long teenage legs wrapped 'round the body
  (...) When your breast comes out of heaven
  I rejoice till morning
  Youth and skin are the miracles of our night long love
  • "Group Grope"
  You ask about my philosophy, baby
  Dope... peace... magic... gods in the tree trunks
  Oh baby, does it feel so good inside you, baby
  Do you want it, do you want it more?
  Do you want it, oh it feel so good, oh
  • "I'm Doin' All Right"
  I'm never gonna go to Vietnam
  I'd rather stay here and screw your mum
  (...) So rip your panties off and look me right in the eye
  • "Virgin Forest" is one epic ode to sex.
  Out of chaos, out of the foam, o Aphrodite
  Out of the sea, o Aphrodite
  Born from the sea-green penis
  Goddess of Love, goddess of belly love
  Goddess of breasts, Aphrodite, out of the Froth
• Messianic Archetype: "Doin' All Right"
  You can't miss me, I look a lot like Jesus Christ
• My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: "Kill For Peace", critical of America's involvement in the Vietnam War.
  Kill, kill, kill for peace
  Near or middle or very far east
  Far or near or very middle east
  (...) If you don't kill them then the Chinese will
  If you don't want America to play second fiddle
  Kill, kill, kill for peace
  Kill, kill, kill for peace
  If you let them live' they may subvert the Prussians
  If you let them live they might love the Russians
  Kill, kill, kill for peace
  Kill, kill, kill for peace
  ''(spoken) Kill 'em, kill 'em, strafe those gook creeps!
  The only gook an American can trust is a gook that's got his yellow head bust.
• N-Word Privileges: "Doin' All Right"
  And I'm getting almost as much pussy as the spades
• Non-Appearing Title: The album title doesn't appear in the lyrics.
• Ode to Intoxication:
  • "Group Grope"
  You ask about my philosophy, baby
  Dope... peace... magic... gods in the tree trunks
  • "Doin' All Right"
  When I walk down the street
  The people that I meet hold their noses and say
  "How are you fixed for money?"
  But I just walk on by
  I don't even hear them
  Because I'm high
• One-Man Song: "Dirty Old Man".
• One-Word Title: "Frenzy"
• Precision F-Strike: "Dirty Old Man"
  You fuckin' dirty old man
• Record Producer: Ed Sanders and Richard Alderson.
• Refuge in Audacity: Much like their debut a lot of songs openly address anti-war politics, drugs and glorify lust to epic proportions.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: During "Virgin Forest" the band members imitate monkeys and a group of turkeys.
• Self-Titled Album: Just like their debut the album is named after the band.
• Shout-Out:
  • "I Want To Know" is based on a poem by Charles Olson.
  • "Virgin Forest" namedrops the Greek goddess Aphrodite, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and bases its lyrics of the last part partly on William S. Burroughs Nova Express. There is also a funny interlude where Tarzan is imitated.
  • "Doin' All Right" starts off with a quote from Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto, opus 16.
  • In W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (1971) Tuli Kupferberg has a memorable moment where he walks around dressed up as as soldier, sexually stroking his gun as the soundtrack plays "Kill For Peace".
• Spoken Word in Music: "Virgin Forest" has recitation.
• Stock Sound Effects: "Kill For Peace" has sound effects of gunfire mixed in. "Virgin Forest" uses several sound effects, among them the sound of a streaming river and croaking frogs.
• Surprisingly Gentle Song: "Morning Morning".
• Time Marches On: The references to the Vietnam War in "Doin' All Right" and "Kill For Peace" are quite dated now.
• Unusual Euphemism: "Group Grope" has a bizarre euphemism for a penis.
  Down on that Kataleptic Farm
  Where we farm that old asparagus
• War Is Hell:
  • "Group Grope"
  You ask about my philosophy, baby
  Dope... peace... magic... gods in the tree trunks
  • "Kill Your Peace"
  If you don't like the people
  Or the way that they talk
  If you don't like their manners
  Or they way that they walk,
  Kill, kill, kill for peace
  Kill, kill, kill for peace
  • "I'm Doin' All Right"
  I'm never gonna go to Vietnam
  I prefer to stay right here and screw your mum

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