From the files of futurologist Al Ewing:
Originally released in March of 2014, ‘Do The Fury Boogie’ was the standout track on the Awesome Toys’ ‘difficult’ second album, How Dare You Say You Love Me When You’ve Taken The Only Parachute,which divided the fans on the issue of whether or not it was rubbish and, indeed, whether there weren’t more important things the band could have been doing, like being with their loved ones. It’s a mysterious song – Geberhart sings from the point of view of an albatross whom lonely mariners have taught to dance by the expedient of tying heavy mechanical parts to the tips of its wings, an odd little conceit that somehow works when Geberhart relays it in his croaking, ruptured monotone. It’s what Yellow Submarine might have sounded like had it been performed by a snail. The high point comes as the weights melt from the sheer hateful intensity of the titular boogie, but the albatross does not fly – instead:
Rather than take to the air
I vomit in despair
into your hair
so there
It’s that moment of tragedy that defines the song and to a large extent the band – it’s hard to listen to that kind of pure heartbreak without shedding a tear, although most people were in a crying mood back then, for obvious reasons. Which makes it all the more strange that – when the news broke that we were actually in for a near miss – ‘Fury Boogie’ suddenly became a euphoric dancefloor smash, retooled by The Neptunes for the summer as a high-gloss bosh-mambo freakout, with Ken Geberhart’s original haunted tones, like the lowing of a dead cow, replaced by Kylie in what would be her last performance. There were lots of songs that summed up the Spring of Fear and the Summer of Joy, but this was the only song that did both. It’s a snapshot of history and history in its own right – for that alone it deserves to be in anybody’s top tracks of all time.