Album: Raw Power
Year: 1973
. . .
A lot happened between 1970’s Fun House and 1973’s Raw Power.
For one thing, The Stooges broke up, because their two Elektra albums had tanked and folks were battling substance abuse, most significantly Iggy, who had discovered heroin. As you do.
Luckily, with the help of an obscure British rocker called David Bowie, Iggy kicked smack, and signed a contract with Columbia Records. As you do. So with guitarist James Williamson, who’d joined the Stooges as a second guitarist as everything was falling apart — kinda like Pat Smear in Nirvana — Iggy went to London in order to record what was originally going to be his solo debut.
Problem was, he couldn’t find a British rhythm section that rocked the way he wanted, so he recruited the Asheton brothers — with Ron switching from guitar to bass — to give him the kick that those english wussies just weren’t capable of. And so Raw Power was credited to “Iggy and The Stooges,” because that wasn’t going to confuse anybody.
Anyways, there has always been controversy surrounding the final mix of Raw Power. First, Iggy did a mix that was kinda shitty, so then he was told that it would be remixed by obscure British rocker David Bowie, and depending on the source, that remix either included “Search and Destroy” or didn’t include “Search and Destroy,” and also, Iggy hated Bowie’s mix, which might be partly why David Bowie was never heard from again.
Anyways, Raw Power sound like it sounds, and one thing is for certain: “Search and Destroy” is pure white-hot energy, one of those songs where the music and lyrics are so perfectly matched, you can’t imagine this music with any other words and these words with any other music.
I mean, just the opening itself: a couple measures of a guitar riff, and then all hell breaks loose as James Williamson just explodes all over the track, shooting guitar licks in every single direction, all of which sets up one of the greatest opening verses ever spewed.
I’m a street-walking cheetah
With a heart full of napalm
I’m a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb
I am a world’s forgotten boy
The one who searches and destroysHoney, gotta help me, please
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, detonate for me!
Every single one of those lines is pure chaotic genius, hilarious and scary and profound, all the while being matched with music that sounds like that a-bomb going off over and over and over, pure destruction, especially Scott Asheton’s utterly insane drum rolls, which make no sense, and yet propel the song straight into a second verse that might ever be better than the first.
Look out, honey, ’cause I’m using technology
Ain’t got time to make no apology
Soul radiation in the dead of night
Love in the middle of a firefightHoney, gotta strike me blind
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, penetrate my mind
All of this lead into the chorus, which is just straight-up adrenaline, Williamson just smashing chords underneath.
And I’m the world’s forgotten boy
The one who’s searchin’, searchin’ to destroy
And honey, I’m the world’s forgotten boy
The one who’s searchin’, searchin’ to destroy
After this, chaos reigns, as they randomly repeat the second verse and the chorus again, and at the end Iggy’s screaming “forgotten boy” over and over and over, Williamson is tossing out solo after solo and the whole eventually explodes under its own power. Whew!!
“Search and Destroy” isn’t just my favorite Stooges song, it’s also my favorite Iggy song full up, and masterclass in how to create tension by never even bothering to stop moving forward, by staying loose and raggedy while doing everything you can to break the song against itself. Fuck yeah!
Though I do occasionally wonder whatever happened to that Bowie guy.
“Search and Destroy”
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