Crazy Little Child

[Rod]

I'm not sure if this has already been addressed in previous posts or in your book (been a while since I read it):

Crazy Little Child is a strange song in that it is quite different in feel than the typical band song. It doesn't sound like the same Alice Cooper from Love it to Death, Killer etc. It's also quite different from the rest of the MoL album itself.

Was the band deliberately trying to sound different? How did the song come about?

[Ted Sallis]

I hope it's okay if I chime in here before Dennis replies...I have Michael Bruce's book, No More Mr. Nice Guy within which Michael states that CLC was originally a song written by himself while in high school (during the 60's) but that the final version recorded for the MOL album was very different.

Ted

[Dreary]

Crazy Little Child was inspired by Michael's lyrics.
I'm not sure why we decided to give it a New Orleans jazz feel. You are right about it being out of our style. Personally, I thought it was too typically standard for us, however I liked the idea of doing something unexpected, and like everything we did, I went with the majority vote.

I imagined horns on it, which was very uncharacteristic for me, but it reminded me of something that Elvis would have done on the King Creole album. I love Elvis. I fondly remember when I wasn't quite old enough to watch my younger siblings so my parents would hire a baby sitter. She would show up with her latest Elvis platters and I would be in charge of spinning them on her portable record player while she and her girlfriends danced the Bop in their poodle skirts.

I wanted to do the traditional bass part justice on Crazy Little Child, and I knew Jack Richardson was a bassist who was comfortable in that style so I had the roadies set up an extra bass amp in the rehearsal studio and had my Hofner bass handy. I talked Jack into playing along for a few passes so I could pick up on his feel and catch some of the notes and then I refined it on my own. Perhaps I should have been more inventive on my parts but playing a bluesy feel was enjoyable for us. It took us back to our early days as a club band.

[Rod]

Thanks for such a detailed explanation. I quite like the song, it's good to know the backstory

[dadascot]

This has long been a favourite of mine. It showed me that the band was capable of doing anything.

[Babysquid]

Neal’s not too keen on it though, Is that correct?