The Shaggs
Philosophy of the World
(Third World, 1969)

I’ll admit it: You’re probably not going to like the Shaggs. And, I’ll tell you why. Because you’ve got taste and the Shaggs sound terrible. They can’t sing in key. They don’t know how to play their instruments. The drums rarely, if ever, keep any kind of steady time, and the guitars are consistently and wildly out of tune. Their lyrics are simplistic to the point of being childish; some would call them just plain dumb. Even their biggest fans (Frank Zappa claimed they were better than the Beatles; Lester Bangs called their record “a landmark in rock ‘n’ roll history”; Rolling Stone once declared them “Comeback of the Year”) have to admit that the Shaggs are one of the least musically talented ensembles in the history of rock. It’s hard to deny that, when it comes to musical virtuosity, the Shaggs make Sid Vicious look like the guy from Shine. But just because you don’t know what you’re doing doesn’t mean you can’t make music that’s fun to listen to—and there’s no better proof of that than Philosophy of the World.

The Shaggs were Betty, Dot, and Helen Wiggin—three poor, home-schooled, New Hampshire sisters who were pushed into taking music lessons (yes, they actually took lessons) by their overbearing father, Austin. It was his idea for the girls to form a band, and once they had a few songs sketched out, it was Austin who drove them to Massachusetts and paid to have them record Philosophy of the World. The session was a disaster. The recording engineers were baffled by the girls’, um, unconventional approach, and the man who had agreed to release the album ended up disappearing with nearly all of the 1,000 copies they had pressed. At the end of what their father had imagined would be their big break, the girls were left record-less, talent-less, and even poorer than before. Thankfully, in a bit of a pop music miracle, one of those few remaining copies ended up in the right hands (a Boston area radio station) and the Shaggs were saved from obscurity.

Of course, the band’s unlikely story adds to the fun of listening to their record. But there are plenty of bands who have great stories and no talent and whose records aren’t any fun to listen to at all. In the end, the music on Philosophy of the World speaks for itself. Behind all that dissonant caterwauling, these songs are actually remarkably poppy and weirdly catchy. And with every listen, as you become increasingly familiar with each bizarre turn in their songwriting, it matters less and less that the guitar part doesn’t match the drums, or that the vocals aren’t in key. Those childish lyrics, upon closer inspection, offer up pearls of simple-minded, teenaged wisdom (”Oh, the rich people want what the poor people’s got,” Dot sings in the chorus of the title track, “and the poor people want what the rich people’s got”).

The lyrics are a reflection of the band’s unquestionable sincerity—think what you will of their ability, it’s clear that every song is honest and heartfelt. The Wiggin sisters might not have had a lot of talent to pour into their record, but everything they did have they gave. And that supplies their songs with a strange brew of off-kilter, poor-white-girl soul.

The Shaggs are definitely not for everybody, but that’s to be expected. Their father may have dreamed of stardom, but the girls were skeptical, ultimately playing for themselves and for their father and for fun. When it came to their instruments, they were oblivious and naïve and they played with all the reckless abandon of 12-year-olds in their parents’ basement, strumming away on their first beat-up, hand-me-down guitar. And so that’s what you’ll find behind all the messy chords and random time signatures that make up Philosophy of the World: The crude, rudimentary, unfiltered joy of playing music.

Listen: The Shaggs’ “Who are Parents” [at youtube.com]

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