Enter the name for this tabbed section: FREAK SHOW
First Release
CD - 1990 - OP (Ralph Records),- OP012 - US
Enter the name for this tabbed section: credits - tracks
THE RESIDENTS
with guests:
D. Alden
L. Amat
T. Janssen
with guests:
D. Alden
L. Amat
T. Janssen
Freak Show CD
• Everyone Comes to the Freak Show
• Harry's Introduction
• Harry the Head
• Herman Watches TV (Mexican porn)
• Herman, the Human Mole
• Wanda does her act
• Wanda, the Worm Woman
• Jack amuses the crowd
• Jack, the Boneless Boy
• Benny bounces
• Benny, the Bouncing Bump
• Mickey, the Mumbling Midget
• Lillie
• Nobody Laughs When They Leave
Bonus DVD
• Herman the Human Mole
• The Freak Show Press Release (incl. Harry the Head video)
• Jelly Jack video
• Benny the Bouncing Bump (NEC reception)
• Freak Show Live (Prague) excerpt
• Benny the Bouncing Bump
• Pickled Punks
• Everyone Comes to the Freak Show
• Harry's Introduction
• Harry the Head
• Herman Watches TV (Mexican porn)
• Herman, the Human Mole
• Wanda does her act
• Wanda, the Worm Woman
• Jack amuses the crowd
• Jack, the Boneless Boy
• Benny bounces
• Benny, the Bouncing Bump
• Mickey, the Mumbling Midget
• Lillie
• Nobody Laughs When They Leave
Bonus DVD
• Herman the Human Mole
• The Freak Show Press Release (incl. Harry the Head video)
• Jelly Jack video
• Benny the Bouncing Bump (NEC reception)
• Freak Show Live (Prague) excerpt
• Benny the Bouncing Bump
• Pickled Punks
Enter the name for this tabbed section: other incarnations
PICTURE DISC (1990)
FREAK SHOW (Original Cover)
Tracks:
• Everyone Comes to the Freak Show
• Harry the Head
• Herman, the Human Mole
• Wanda, the Worm Woman
• Jello Jack, the Boneless Boy
• Benny, the Bouncing Bump
• Mickey, the Mumbling Midget
• Lillie
• Nobody Laughs When They Leave
EURO RALPH VERSION
The EuroRalph versions have a different cover. The 1995 release from EuroRalph contains and extra track which is actually a multimedia track of a music video for "Lillie".
BLOWOFF (1990) Originally a separate release (a "Blow off" is a side show in a carnival freak show that cost additionally to see), it was reintegrated back into Freak Show in 2002.
FREAK SHOW SPECIAL EDITION
Freak Show (CD1)
• Everyone Comes to the Freak Show
• Harry's Introduction
• Harry the Head
• Herman Watches TV (Mexican porn)
• Herman, the Human Mole
• Wanda does her act
• Wanda, the Worm Woman
• Jack amuses the crowd
• Jack, the Boneless Boy
• Benny bounces
• Benny, the Bouncing Bump
• Mickey, the Mumbling Midget
• Lillie
• Nobody Laughs When They Leave
Prague and Beyond (CD2)
• Everyone Comes to the Freak Show
• Wanda
• Mickey
• Bridge
• Herman
• Harry
• Jack
• Benny
• Wanda's Letters (Part 17)
• Nobody Laughs When They Leave
• Freak Show remix (2001)
• Benny Live - Icky Flix Tour (2001)
Note: The "Freak Show Special Edition" is a hardback book containing 2 CDs and 48 pages of notes, lyrics and pictures related to the whole Freak Show project, including the CDROM, comic and live shows. The original recording is augmented with additional material and the second CD contains much of the live show performed in Praha as well as other performances. Hand-numbered edition of 1000 copies.
Enter the name for this tabbed section: lyrics
Everyone Comes to the Freak Show
Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Step right up and you will see on display
a collection of some of the stranges specimens ever gathered
together -- both LIVE and preserved.
You will see the incredible JELLO JACK -- the boneless boy and
HERMAN -- The Human Mole.
You'll see WANDA -- The Worm Woman and MICKEY -- The
Mumbling Midget with his secret from far beyond the realm of
human understanding.
There's also Benny -- Bouncing Benny The Bump who can't wait to
show you the eerie and shapeless mass which he hides beneath his
shirt and shows only when he does his famous dance --
THE BOUNCING BUMP!
So -- step this way, folks come on in, you know you can't resist.
Come in and make your mundane lives look like the kiss of bliss.
Everyone comes to the Freak Show
To laugh at the Freaks and the Geeks
Everyone comes to the Freak Show
But nobody laughs when they leave.
Once a man exploded just before he went to sleep
When his wife awoke she found some fragments of his feet
She wondered what had happened but there was no mouth to say
Or lips to kiss or even any tears to wipe away
She went to see a priest and asked if death could be much worse
Than knowing what was left of love would fit inside her purse.
Someone said that nothing hurts you
Like a vice without a virtue;
That may be but is it worse than
Life when it becomes so certain
That your eyes cannot be open
To the twisted and the broken?
Harry the Head
The Head was hardly human
The head is finally dead
"I can live forever
In formaldehyde", he said.
Once he made me so mad
I knocked him on the floor;
He rolled around and found a
little paint brush
by the door;
As he held it in his teeth
he painted angels
On the skirt I wore.
Harry
Harry
Harry
Harry -- The Head is dead.
Harry -- The Head is dead.
Harry -- The Head is dead.
Herman -- The Human Mole
Herman
Herman
Herman isn't happy
Herman isn't well
Herman is an albino
Not that you could tell.
Herman
Herman
Herman is dirty
Herman is cold
Herman is thirty and
Wishes he was old
But he isn't.
Herman has a trailer
On top of it is grass
He filled the inside up with dirt
And made the sides of glass
He lets you climb the steps
Up to the top for free
And look down through a little hole
Above his old TV.
But if you want some more
You pay to go inside
The tent that goes around the trailer
In which Herman hides.
Herman plays piano
When no one is around
He has an upright baby Steinway
Underneath the ground.
Wanda -- The Worm Woman
Sneering at the leering lady
as she stares and squirms
At Wanda with her saintly smile
and living wig of worms
I like to watch their faces fall
as we disgust and shame them
Seeking suckers is my game
-- no longer lion taming.
Like a pink and pregnant pumpkin
perched upon her neck
Wanda Wadkins head was hurting
it was bitten by insects
I watched the awkward way she waddled
walking to the pail
She always used to wash her worms
and clean beneath her nails.
I love the should I see inside her
but I just can't love her
Folding fat that rolls around
like bowling balls in butter...
Wanda Wanda Wanda...
Watch me watch me watch me
Won't you watch me for a while
Watch me pick my worms up
And put them in a pile
Watch me sit upon it with
My Mona Lisa smile.
Why Wanda why, do I always watch you cry?
Jello Jack -- The Boneless Boy
Ho ho ho I'm Jello Jack the jolly boneless boy.
I live inside a jar beside the rooster boy named Roy.
They pour me out upon a platform and the people stare
At eyeballs in a pool of flesh surrounded by some hair.
I wish I was a cowboy or maybe just a bird
Singing simple melodies that no one every heard
Soaring with the winter winds and bringing in the spring
Sharing air with orioles and bumblebee that sting
And making babies proud of all the bugs that I would bring.
I'd sit up high above the ground and laugh as I looked down
at all the silly humans as they slowly trudged around.
But as I see the end of evening turn into the night
The bird inside my brain becomes a light that is too bright.
In his dreams at night he hears a white hot light
And he knows that God is singing in his dreams at night.
Hot heat smolders smokiung embers
Vibrate deep, vibrate deep
Cause teeth clinch, cause vibrate deep
Inside the sucking sound of suction,
Suction, sucking sections of my soul,
Sucking section of the only thoughts
My mind will salivate and drool
And press against itself and press
Against itself and feel the cursing
Flow of fever, driven, biting, grinding, clinching,
Ream the center of the Sun
With shaft of Solid Steel
Know that there is nothing like the feeling
Of those steel fingers up inside
Of something sticky, sweet and wet
Feel the lips of licking licky wet liquid;
feel the tongue that touches the tips of sharp pointed things.
Bouncing Benny
Seeing that his eyes were empty under half closed lids,
Made it all the more disturbing knowing Benny hid
A bump that looked like clods of dirt inside a sickly lung
That barely peeked beneath his shirt and twitched like Toto's tongue.
For fifty cents inside a tent adjacent to the rest,
The weaker souls could hide their eyes while Benny bared his chest;
He rubbed the bump with oleo and little bits of meat
And stroked the shape as it extended down towards his feet.
Bounce Benny bounce Bouncing Benny
He would put a record on then go into a trance
Until he heard his mother's favorite polka then he danced;
The record player went to fast but Benny didn't care,
He simply bounced around the room while people stood and stared.
Benny really only cared about one single thing --
He collected magazines called "Women in the Ring";
He kept them all in plastic bags and everybody said
That Benny talked to them at night before he went to bed.
Bounce Benny bounce Bouncing Benny
I need someone to wrestle with she'd have to wear a hood.
And hold me in a hammerlock if she was feeling good.
She'd probably have a ponytail that stuck out from the back
And I bet her eyes would shine -- right when she attacked;
She might be kind of mean some times and act like we weren't friends,
But when the match was over we'd be buddies till the end;
I've got to go! I've got to go! I know that she is there --
Waiting in a ring for me to hug her like a bear.
Follow that dream Benny follow that dream...
Mickey -- The Mumbling Midget
Mickey the mumbling midget
was ten years old today
Mickey the mumbling midget
somehow ran away
Mickey the mumbling midget
was not in his cage
Mickey the mumbling midget
soon would need a shave
Lassie looked at something shapeless lying on the lawn
Scratching at some scabby sores and stretching as it yawned
It seemed to be uneasy as it looked up at the moon
She sensed the tension in the air and smelled a sweet baboon.
Pungent was the warm aroma drifting in the air
She hoped that he would smell her heat and lick her silken hair.
Run Mickey run
Run Lassie
Lillie
I saw a woman chewing with nothing in her mouth;
Her teeth were in her hands and her tongue was hanging out;
Then she started drooling and caught it in a cup,
The cup was full of pennies; it spilled when she got up.
Some guy is in the shadows grabbing empty air;
He could be catching butterflies if there were any there.
All the freaks are not inside the tents
Some pay to come and be in the audience.
I saw a great big guy who had a little gun;
He pulled it out and smiled and then he sucked his thumb
His wife was standing by with a leather leash
Fastened to a child who cried beside their feet.
The scary one is back with clothes so white and clean;
And her face that's coated with a quarter inch of cream --- cold cream
She's the one who freaks the freaks out
Lillie little Lille, Lillie little Lillie, Lillie chilling Lillie
Lillie with her white face.
Delicate Lille is stainless lonely and
She is too white
Like a face in a flashlight with teeth that might bite
She is too white
Like dice rolling snakeyes in headlights at night
She is too white
Like a corpse in the sunshine or eyes in a fight
There's a spot a spot on my glove on my glove I know, no no maybe it wasmake em runny make em runny honey... doilies doilies where have all the doilies gone...
Roses will whither and die
Along with the lace and the lies
Nothing is nicer than death
At matching the bad and the best
Heh heh... he hated me he hated me and hate is white and hate is hot butI'll not even have disdain for him not even a stain on a memory looked up to, lacking all respect for him I'm blacking out the specks of decent throughs that lingerin me and leave only white white peaceful white calm white swans silently flying in the snow look down and see the bleached bones of a noble knight who died trying to save his lady his lovely white lady who brought her man milk in the moonlight but it was too late too late too late he said
Scratch out the pin holes
Open up the sores
Don't look out the window
White hatred's at the door.
And he tried to make me dirty make me dirty make me dirty.
Touch her someone
Touch her someone
Reach out to her
Touch her soiled soul.
Nobody Laughs When They Leave
Everyone comes the to Freak Show
To laugh at the Freaks and the Geeks
Everyone comes the to Freak Show
But nobody laughs when they leave.
We are only equal in the grave and in the dark
Said a man whose head was halfway eaten by a shark
Now if you ask me why I would continue on like this
I doubt that I would know so I could only make a guess
Half a mouth may not be much but it's still half a kiss.
Everyone comes to the Freak Show
To laugh at the Freaks and the Geeks
Life is a lot like a Freak Show
Nobody laughs when they leave.
Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Step right up and you will see on display
a collection of some of the stranges specimens ever gathered
together -- both LIVE and preserved.
You will see the incredible JELLO JACK -- the boneless boy and
HERMAN -- The Human Mole.
You'll see WANDA -- The Worm Woman and MICKEY -- The
Mumbling Midget with his secret from far beyond the realm of
human understanding.
There's also Benny -- Bouncing Benny The Bump who can't wait to
show you the eerie and shapeless mass which he hides beneath his
shirt and shows only when he does his famous dance --
THE BOUNCING BUMP!
So -- step this way, folks come on in, you know you can't resist.
Come in and make your mundane lives look like the kiss of bliss.
Everyone comes to the Freak Show
To laugh at the Freaks and the Geeks
Everyone comes to the Freak Show
But nobody laughs when they leave.
Once a man exploded just before he went to sleep
When his wife awoke she found some fragments of his feet
She wondered what had happened but there was no mouth to say
Or lips to kiss or even any tears to wipe away
She went to see a priest and asked if death could be much worse
Than knowing what was left of love would fit inside her purse.
Someone said that nothing hurts you
Like a vice without a virtue;
That may be but is it worse than
Life when it becomes so certain
That your eyes cannot be open
To the twisted and the broken?
Harry the Head
The Head was hardly human
The head is finally dead
"I can live forever
In formaldehyde", he said.
Once he made me so mad
I knocked him on the floor;
He rolled around and found a
little paint brush
by the door;
As he held it in his teeth
he painted angels
On the skirt I wore.
Harry
Harry
Harry
Harry -- The Head is dead.
Harry -- The Head is dead.
Harry -- The Head is dead.
Herman -- The Human Mole
Herman
Herman
Herman isn't happy
Herman isn't well
Herman is an albino
Not that you could tell.
Herman
Herman
Herman is dirty
Herman is cold
Herman is thirty and
Wishes he was old
But he isn't.
Herman has a trailer
On top of it is grass
He filled the inside up with dirt
And made the sides of glass
He lets you climb the steps
Up to the top for free
And look down through a little hole
Above his old TV.
But if you want some more
You pay to go inside
The tent that goes around the trailer
In which Herman hides.
Herman plays piano
When no one is around
He has an upright baby Steinway
Underneath the ground.
Wanda -- The Worm Woman
Sneering at the leering lady
as she stares and squirms
At Wanda with her saintly smile
and living wig of worms
I like to watch their faces fall
as we disgust and shame them
Seeking suckers is my game
-- no longer lion taming.
Like a pink and pregnant pumpkin
perched upon her neck
Wanda Wadkins head was hurting
it was bitten by insects
I watched the awkward way she waddled
walking to the pail
She always used to wash her worms
and clean beneath her nails.
I love the should I see inside her
but I just can't love her
Folding fat that rolls around
like bowling balls in butter...
Wanda Wanda Wanda...
Watch me watch me watch me
Won't you watch me for a while
Watch me pick my worms up
And put them in a pile
Watch me sit upon it with
My Mona Lisa smile.
Why Wanda why, do I always watch you cry?
Jello Jack -- The Boneless Boy
Ho ho ho I'm Jello Jack the jolly boneless boy.
I live inside a jar beside the rooster boy named Roy.
They pour me out upon a platform and the people stare
At eyeballs in a pool of flesh surrounded by some hair.
I wish I was a cowboy or maybe just a bird
Singing simple melodies that no one every heard
Soaring with the winter winds and bringing in the spring
Sharing air with orioles and bumblebee that sting
And making babies proud of all the bugs that I would bring.
I'd sit up high above the ground and laugh as I looked down
at all the silly humans as they slowly trudged around.
But as I see the end of evening turn into the night
The bird inside my brain becomes a light that is too bright.
In his dreams at night he hears a white hot light
And he knows that God is singing in his dreams at night.
Hot heat smolders smokiung embers
Vibrate deep, vibrate deep
Cause teeth clinch, cause vibrate deep
Inside the sucking sound of suction,
Suction, sucking sections of my soul,
Sucking section of the only thoughts
My mind will salivate and drool
And press against itself and press
Against itself and feel the cursing
Flow of fever, driven, biting, grinding, clinching,
Ream the center of the Sun
With shaft of Solid Steel
Know that there is nothing like the feeling
Of those steel fingers up inside
Of something sticky, sweet and wet
Feel the lips of licking licky wet liquid;
feel the tongue that touches the tips of sharp pointed things.
Bouncing Benny
Seeing that his eyes were empty under half closed lids,
Made it all the more disturbing knowing Benny hid
A bump that looked like clods of dirt inside a sickly lung
That barely peeked beneath his shirt and twitched like Toto's tongue.
For fifty cents inside a tent adjacent to the rest,
The weaker souls could hide their eyes while Benny bared his chest;
He rubbed the bump with oleo and little bits of meat
And stroked the shape as it extended down towards his feet.
Bounce Benny bounce Bouncing Benny
He would put a record on then go into a trance
Until he heard his mother's favorite polka then he danced;
The record player went to fast but Benny didn't care,
He simply bounced around the room while people stood and stared.
Benny really only cared about one single thing --
He collected magazines called "Women in the Ring";
He kept them all in plastic bags and everybody said
That Benny talked to them at night before he went to bed.
Bounce Benny bounce Bouncing Benny
I need someone to wrestle with she'd have to wear a hood.
And hold me in a hammerlock if she was feeling good.
She'd probably have a ponytail that stuck out from the back
And I bet her eyes would shine -- right when she attacked;
She might be kind of mean some times and act like we weren't friends,
But when the match was over we'd be buddies till the end;
I've got to go! I've got to go! I know that she is there --
Waiting in a ring for me to hug her like a bear.
Follow that dream Benny follow that dream...
Mickey -- The Mumbling Midget
Mickey the mumbling midget
was ten years old today
Mickey the mumbling midget
somehow ran away
Mickey the mumbling midget
was not in his cage
Mickey the mumbling midget
soon would need a shave
Lassie looked at something shapeless lying on the lawn
Scratching at some scabby sores and stretching as it yawned
It seemed to be uneasy as it looked up at the moon
She sensed the tension in the air and smelled a sweet baboon.
Pungent was the warm aroma drifting in the air
She hoped that he would smell her heat and lick her silken hair.
Run Mickey run
Run Lassie
Lillie
I saw a woman chewing with nothing in her mouth;
Her teeth were in her hands and her tongue was hanging out;
Then she started drooling and caught it in a cup,
The cup was full of pennies; it spilled when she got up.
Some guy is in the shadows grabbing empty air;
He could be catching butterflies if there were any there.
All the freaks are not inside the tents
Some pay to come and be in the audience.
I saw a great big guy who had a little gun;
He pulled it out and smiled and then he sucked his thumb
His wife was standing by with a leather leash
Fastened to a child who cried beside their feet.
The scary one is back with clothes so white and clean;
And her face that's coated with a quarter inch of cream --- cold cream
She's the one who freaks the freaks out
Lillie little Lille, Lillie little Lillie, Lillie chilling Lillie
Lillie with her white face.
Delicate Lille is stainless lonely and
She is too white
Like a face in a flashlight with teeth that might bite
She is too white
Like dice rolling snakeyes in headlights at night
She is too white
Like a corpse in the sunshine or eyes in a fight
There's a spot a spot on my glove on my glove I know, no no maybe it wasmake em runny make em runny honey... doilies doilies where have all the doilies gone...
Roses will whither and die
Along with the lace and the lies
Nothing is nicer than death
At matching the bad and the best
Heh heh... he hated me he hated me and hate is white and hate is hot butI'll not even have disdain for him not even a stain on a memory looked up to, lacking all respect for him I'm blacking out the specks of decent throughs that lingerin me and leave only white white peaceful white calm white swans silently flying in the snow look down and see the bleached bones of a noble knight who died trying to save his lady his lovely white lady who brought her man milk in the moonlight but it was too late too late too late he said
Scratch out the pin holes
Open up the sores
Don't look out the window
White hatred's at the door.
And he tried to make me dirty make me dirty make me dirty.
Touch her someone
Touch her someone
Reach out to her
Touch her soiled soul.
Nobody Laughs When They Leave
Everyone comes the to Freak Show
To laugh at the Freaks and the Geeks
Everyone comes the to Freak Show
But nobody laughs when they leave.
We are only equal in the grave and in the dark
Said a man whose head was halfway eaten by a shark
Now if you ask me why I would continue on like this
I doubt that I would know so I could only make a guess
Half a mouth may not be much but it's still half a kiss.
Everyone comes to the Freak Show
To laugh at the Freaks and the Geeks
Life is a lot like a Freak Show
Nobody laughs when they leave.
Enter the name for this tabbed section: notes
The Residents returned from a lengthy tour of CUBE E feeling confused. Their self-exhibition as a dark and strange deformity of American culture had cast a shadow over their identity. They were a freak show.
Few should have been surprised that this became their obsession, for The Residents tune into their fears for direction. The album became a series of “short stories” told against a backdrop of unpredictable riffs. With the exception of the catchy, “Harry the Head,” none of the tracks can quite be considered “pop” songs. They dwell in the land of the subconscious, like fragments of thoughts that are replaced by new thoughts before ever being completed.
These stories grew into a graphic novel, with ten terrific visual artists adding their own visions to that of The Residents. The artists include Brian Bolland, John Bolton, Dave McKean, Savage Pencil, Kyle Baker, Charles Burns, Matt Howarth, Richard Sala, Rex Ray and Pore No Graphics.
The graphic novel opened the door for the realization of Freak Show as a CD-ROM. Working closely with computer animator, Jim Ludtke (who did the “Harry the Head” video), The Residents are constructing a whole interactive world for the inhabitants of the Freak Show that will allow the curious voyeur the opportunity to delve deeper into the lives behind the deformities.
While, at this writing, the ROM has not been released, a sneak presentation as a work-in-progress was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in October of 1992.
- Uncle Willie
After the Cube E tour The Residents were feeling rather dispirited. The last leg of the tour had been plagued with problems and they'd been feeling more and more like what had started out as a piece of musical theatre had turned into an exhibition of bizarre cultural deformities with themselves as the star attraction. "Everyone comes to the freak-show" became a back-stage catch-phrase for the tour. It didn't help that after almost ten years of tours and major projects (not to mention nearly twenty years of albums), the musical press still spent far more time talking about their Eyeball heads than their music.
Building on their fears and worries (a frequent source of inspiration for them) and inspired by such sources as Daniel P. Mannix's book Freaks: We Who Are Not Like Others and the 1932 movie Freaks, they came up with a series of short stories about a troupe of side-show freaks.
The songs which grew out of these don't necessarily tell these stories (though some do) but instead concentrate on the character of the people -- with the reminder that these are people, in spite of their often disturbing appearances. The group also turn the situation upside-down for one song, Lillie. Lillie is a member of the audience who, in spite of being a so-called "normal" person, is so disturbing that she manages to freak the freaks out.
The Residents hired Tony Janssen, who had worked with them on the sound on Cube-E, to help out with the MIDI work on the album. The band had started experimenting with the technology when they were hired to write soundtracks for episodes of Pee-Wee's Playhouse but this was the most extensive use of the synthesizer networking system they had ever undertaken.
The album was fairly successful and The Residents decided to expand on the ideas within it. They teamed up with computer animator Jim Ludtke to produce a promotional video, Harry the Head. As part of their 20th Anniversary celebrations in 1992 they recruited a host of top-notch alternative comix artists to produce a full-color graphic novel based on the characters' songs and stories, which was published by Dark Horse Comics. A special limited-edition hard-cover version also included a single called Blowoff, a fifteen-minute instrumental piece based on musical ideas from Freak Show.
The graphic novel was a hit and was followed by a first for The Residents: a CD-ROM. The interactive program lets the viewer not only explore the actual Freak Show under the big top, but also go backstage to the Freaks' trailers and poke around in their personal belongings and private lives (and see videos for each character). The Residents themselves appear as a freak act and have a trailer for you to explore, which contains a history of the band.
EuroRalph has put out a Freak Show CD-ROM Soundtrack CD. This is identical to the original album but includes a bonus CD-ROM track based on Dave McKean's graphic-novel story for the song Lillie (which had been left off of the CD-ROM).
In 1995 the band turned Freak Show into a stage show, which they premiered in November, 1995, in Prague. The band themselves did not perform but instead they hired the leader of a Czech band, Uz Jsme Doma, as music director for an orchestra which performed the music, as well as a handful of actors and singers who appear on stage.
Ralph America released a 2 CD set of an updated Freak Show that incorporated the Blowoff pieces along with music from the live performance in Prague.
Mute released a CD/DVD Freak Show set.
Few should have been surprised that this became their obsession, for The Residents tune into their fears for direction. The album became a series of “short stories” told against a backdrop of unpredictable riffs. With the exception of the catchy, “Harry the Head,” none of the tracks can quite be considered “pop” songs. They dwell in the land of the subconscious, like fragments of thoughts that are replaced by new thoughts before ever being completed.
These stories grew into a graphic novel, with ten terrific visual artists adding their own visions to that of The Residents. The artists include Brian Bolland, John Bolton, Dave McKean, Savage Pencil, Kyle Baker, Charles Burns, Matt Howarth, Richard Sala, Rex Ray and Pore No Graphics.
The graphic novel opened the door for the realization of Freak Show as a CD-ROM. Working closely with computer animator, Jim Ludtke (who did the “Harry the Head” video), The Residents are constructing a whole interactive world for the inhabitants of the Freak Show that will allow the curious voyeur the opportunity to delve deeper into the lives behind the deformities.
While, at this writing, the ROM has not been released, a sneak presentation as a work-in-progress was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in October of 1992.
- Uncle Willie
After the Cube E tour The Residents were feeling rather dispirited. The last leg of the tour had been plagued with problems and they'd been feeling more and more like what had started out as a piece of musical theatre had turned into an exhibition of bizarre cultural deformities with themselves as the star attraction. "Everyone comes to the freak-show" became a back-stage catch-phrase for the tour. It didn't help that after almost ten years of tours and major projects (not to mention nearly twenty years of albums), the musical press still spent far more time talking about their Eyeball heads than their music.
Building on their fears and worries (a frequent source of inspiration for them) and inspired by such sources as Daniel P. Mannix's book Freaks: We Who Are Not Like Others and the 1932 movie Freaks, they came up with a series of short stories about a troupe of side-show freaks.
The songs which grew out of these don't necessarily tell these stories (though some do) but instead concentrate on the character of the people -- with the reminder that these are people, in spite of their often disturbing appearances. The group also turn the situation upside-down for one song, Lillie. Lillie is a member of the audience who, in spite of being a so-called "normal" person, is so disturbing that she manages to freak the freaks out.
The Residents hired Tony Janssen, who had worked with them on the sound on Cube-E, to help out with the MIDI work on the album. The band had started experimenting with the technology when they were hired to write soundtracks for episodes of Pee-Wee's Playhouse but this was the most extensive use of the synthesizer networking system they had ever undertaken.
The album was fairly successful and The Residents decided to expand on the ideas within it. They teamed up with computer animator Jim Ludtke to produce a promotional video, Harry the Head. As part of their 20th Anniversary celebrations in 1992 they recruited a host of top-notch alternative comix artists to produce a full-color graphic novel based on the characters' songs and stories, which was published by Dark Horse Comics. A special limited-edition hard-cover version also included a single called Blowoff, a fifteen-minute instrumental piece based on musical ideas from Freak Show.
The graphic novel was a hit and was followed by a first for The Residents: a CD-ROM. The interactive program lets the viewer not only explore the actual Freak Show under the big top, but also go backstage to the Freaks' trailers and poke around in their personal belongings and private lives (and see videos for each character). The Residents themselves appear as a freak act and have a trailer for you to explore, which contains a history of the band.
EuroRalph has put out a Freak Show CD-ROM Soundtrack CD. This is identical to the original album but includes a bonus CD-ROM track based on Dave McKean's graphic-novel story for the song Lillie (which had been left off of the CD-ROM).
In 1995 the band turned Freak Show into a stage show, which they premiered in November, 1995, in Prague. The band themselves did not perform but instead they hired the leader of a Czech band, Uz Jsme Doma, as music director for an orchestra which performed the music, as well as a handful of actors and singers who appear on stage.
Ralph America released a 2 CD set of an updated Freak Show that incorporated the Blowoff pieces along with music from the live performance in Prague.
Mute released a CD/DVD Freak Show set.