WHIRLING DERVISH

from OUT OF THY STAR by The Ophelias

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about

Track: 6
Title: WHIRLING DERVISH
Authorship: Leslie Medford/Jeffrey Clark
Publishing: BrowBeat Music, BMI
Recording date: February 1988
Recording place: Emeryville Recording Company, Emeryville, CA
Recording engineers: Randall Rood & David Immerglück – 16 track
Remastered by Carl Salbacka & Leslie Medford
Running Time: 03:19
First appeared on: Oriental Head
Released 20 May 1988

Leslie Medford : vocals, acoustic guitar, bagpipe chanter
David Immerglück : electric guitar, pedal steel guitar
Terry von Blankers : bass guitar
Edward Benton : drums

Particulars: Written on 24 September 1983 and performed that night at the Blackwater Café, Stockton, CA. The free show (with tip jar) was likely the most psychedelic “happening” the Yosemite Street eatery-cum-nightclub ever witnessed. Announced two weeks previously by a Kelly Foley poster the overflow crowd saw Stockton’s “acid folk” scenester set in full flower. 24 songs were performed. Ostensibly a Medford gig, it featured Carlos Lopez on assorted percussion throughout, and during the second set Kelly Foley (Torn Boys, Broken Toys, Toadstool Theater, Gary Young's Hospital) sang harmonies, Grant-Lee Phillips (Torn Boys, Shiva Burlesque, Grant Lee Buffalo) played guitar, and Jeffrey Clark (Torn Boys, Shiva Burlesque) sang lead on a few numbers. The gig soundboard cassette is marred with espresso machines and exuberant crowd noise, but Medford used the Whirling Dervish performance – the penultimate song and with all five participating – as the basis of The Ophelias version. Clark had written the words earlier that day and sings lead, and has since stated he remembers little about his original lyric. “Whenever I hear The Ophelias’ Whirling Dervish I’m amazed! Leslie used the gig cassette to try to determine what I had sung and certainly some lines have been dramatically improved! It’s wonderful. That gig was fantastic on so many levels and the Oafs have captured its magical essence right there. And of course they’ve elevated it, levitated it to an even higher plane.”

lyrics

WHIRLING DERVISH

Rolling snake eyes on a silly grave.
Crawling through used car lots on broken legs.
Doing the cha-cha for puppets there.
The church so quiet, the beggars beg,
And they beg…beg…beg…beg.
Hold me under. Hold me under now.
Whirling dervish won’t you kiss my lover?
Painted nails on a cross-town bus.
A new drug, a strip of leather,
So cold and so new, why don’t you do do do the things like you used to?
Why do they all want to look like us?
Painted nails on a cross-town bus.
Silly eyes, silly eyes…they turn into each other.
Hold me under. Hold me under now.
Whirling dervish won’t you kiss my lover?
Rolling snake eyes on a silly grave.
Crawling by harlots on broken dates.
Shooby dooby rama lama lama lama lama
Ha hari ha ha hari ha ha hari
Now my doctor he is in a coma.
Jesus eats chicken.
Chickens eat Jesus,
So…
Hold me under. Hold me under now.
Whirling dervish won’t you kiss my lover?
Painted nails on a cross-town bus.
Oh! And since you didn’t ask:
He was a black man
He was a white man
He was a black man
He was a white man.
Twice saved.
Took a pill and he fell in the pool.
I’d tell you more…
I’d tell you more
But it’s just too cruel!

credits

from OUT OF THY STAR, released November 23, 2020

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The Ophelias San Francisco, California

The Ophelias are a psychedelic rock band formed in San Francisco in 1984.

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