Album: Nightmares…And Other Tales From the Vinyl Jungle
Year: 1974
The evolution of The J. Geils Band from their beginning as a blues band to their end as a massive pop band is a story best told by somebody who actually knows it.
The things I truly know about the The J. Geils Band are as follows: J. Geils was the guitar player, but despite the band being named after him, he didn’t write very many of the songs, which seems weird. Once they started writing their own songs, about three albums in or so, the bulk were written by keyboardist Seth Justman and singer Peter Wolf, whom I’m guessing that a lot of people initially assumed was the “J. Geils” of the J. Geils band.
Oh, and their harmonica player was Magic Dick, which is one of the five all-time greatest names ever in popular music.
In any event, prior to the success of “Centerfold,” their biggest song was “Must Of Got Lost,” which I remember from the tail end of my KYNO-AM listening days as one of those songs that they never played enough.
But when they did, I really loved the dynamics, as “Must Of Got Lost” slowly built from the stop-time keyboards & drums and classic chord changes of the verses to the whole band kicking in full bore on the crazy catchy chorus.
Must of got lost, must of got lost, must of got lost
Somewhere down the line
Must of got lost, I got lost
Give away the days you were mine
With Seth Justman providing extra piano hooks, the chorus of “Must of Got Lost” that stuck so deep into my head, I did not realize how grammatically incorrect it was until I started writing this post.
Still, had it been a straight quiet verse / loud chorus song, “Must of Got Lost” would have been memorable, but not all time, but about halfway through the song, they switch it up and suddenly, it’s just Peter Wolf, Stephen Bladd’s kick & snare drums and some of the most perfectly-placed handclaps in pop music history.
And I must of got lost
(CLAP!)
I must of got lost
(CLAP!)
I must of got lost
(CLAP!)
Somewhere down the line
(CLAP!)
I must of got lost
(CLAP!)
I must of got lost
(CLAP!)
Give away the days you were mine
No more verses after that. Instead, the full band kicks back in and they repeat the chorus — interrupted only by a quick Geils guitar solo — until the fade.
“Must of Got Lost” is one of the greatest examples of The Handclap Rule — handclaps make a good song great and a great song immortal — ever recorded, and after that breakdown, there wasn’t a need to got back to any verses, just repeat the glorious chorus forever and ever.
“Must of Got Lost”
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