Album: The Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators
Year: 1966
. . .
One of the first bands to use the word “psychedelic” to describe their music, Austin’s awesomely-named 13th Floor Elevators were led by Roky Erickson, and — because the 60s were like this — also had an electric jug player named Tommy Hall, thereby using an unusual older instrument to add texture and weirdness to their music.
And you can hear how Hall’s jug-playing from the start of their greatest song, the primal “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” transforming it from a relatively straight-ahead garage rock song to “what even was that?” What it was, of course, was sheer momentum, as the 13th Floor Elevators roared forward from Erickson’s opening chords and fairly barreled through the first verse.
You’re gonna wake up one morning
As the sun greets the dawn
You’re gonna wake up one morning
As the sun greets the dawn
You’re gonna look around in your mind, girl
You’re gonna find that I’m gone
This went straight into a pre-chorus where Erickson chants “You didn’t realiiiiiiiize” over and over while somebody else — unless it was an over-dubbed Erickson — floated a more etherial “I-I-iiize” in the background. All of this is set up the chorus.
Oh, you’re gonna miss me, baby
Oh, you’re gonna miss me, baby
Oh, you’re gonna miss me, child, yeah, yeah
And while the lyrics of “You’re Gonna Miss Me” are basic stuff, it’s the ever-changing arrangement that makes it kill, as after that first chorus, there’s a drum-lead breakdown where almost everything drops out but Erickson, who’s getting ever more strident.
Yeah!
I gave you the warning
But you never heeded it
How can you say you miss my lovin’
When you never needed it?
Yeah, yeah, ow!
And then, rather going into another chorus, they build into the bridge — drummer John Ike Walton leading the way — and things are getting ever more intense.
You’re gonna wake up wonderin’
Find yourself all alone
But what’s gonna stop me, baby?
I’m not comin’ home
I’m not comin’ home
I’m not comin’ home
The best part is all-hands-on-deck unison scream of “I’m not comin’ home,” after which there’s an instrumental break featuring Erickson’s harmonica, Stacy Sutherland’s lead guitar and that ever-present jug, which takes “You’re Gonna Miss Me” to its fade, everybody too stoned to figure out that they never bothered to go back to the chorus.
This is where I should point out that we covered “You’re Gonna Miss Me” in the first incarnation of Sedan Delivery, playing it live nearly a dozen times, and we made sure to include the chorus three times: by doing the first verse over again as the second verse, and then again at the end after the guitar solo where it was all screaming chaos, more than one involving Craig Sullivan from the Town Cryers, who would then yell “Sedan Delivery, God’s gift to Wishon & McKinley” as the song slammed to a close.
All of this to say that I wasn’t super familiar with the original version of “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” and so I was kinda surprised when I realized that the 13th Floor Elevators version never bothered to repeat anything musically. And while it was incredibly cool and psychedelic, it didn’t really help “You’re Gonna Miss Me” as a single, so it stalled out at #55, and probably didn’t get really well known until Lenny Kaye put it on the Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968 compilation in 1972.
By this time, the 13th Floor Elevators broke up, as Erickson had begun to have severe mental issues: he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1968, and in 1969, to avoid 10 years of jail time for a single joint, Erickson pleaded insanity and was institutionalized until 1972.
Over the decades, he did some recording, releasing solo albums, as well as with Roky Erickson & The Aliens. I’ve not heard any of these. I have, however, heard True Love Cast Out All Evil, and album he did in 2010 with the band Okkervil River, and it is pretty fucking great, as you could hear every single one of the hard years in his voice. That was the last album he recorded prior to his death in 2019.
“You’re Gonna Miss Me”
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