Whip It — how Devo’s subversive track went mainstream

In the beginning was the end. A decade separated the Kent State massacre of 1970, when the Ohio National Guard opened fire on students protesting against the Vietnam war, and the release of the upbeat song “Whip It”. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young bitterly sang about four dead in “Ohio” but something even more subversive (d)evolved in nearby Akron after the shooting.

Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh, the visual artists who formed the band Devo, were students at Kent State. Casale witnessed the shootings and was friends with two of the four slain students. That was the moment when the concept of “devolution” or “de-evolution” that underpinned the band’s mission was born. Put simply, the band argued that humanity was no longer evolving but regressing back to an ape-man state called “Jocko Homo”.

Devo combined grotesque imagery with elements of strange religious pamphlets, video art, profane humour and a deranged musical style. David Bowie, Brian Eno, Iggy Pop, John Lennon and Neil Young were early fans. Richard Branson flew Devo to the Caribbean to propose they take on John Lydon as their singer.

But by 1979 the band opted to move away from the mutant Dadaist approach in favour of a clean, robotic synth-pop style. Robert Margouleff, the electronic pioneer of Stevie Wonder and Tonto’s Expanding Head Band fame, was brought in as a producer for the album Freedom of Choice. It proved a good match for the band’s new sound and Warner Music, which was on the cusp of dropping the Ohio weirdos, spied a hit in the “My Sharona”-like track “Girl U Want”.

The band were by this stage “Kraftwerk from the waist up, Elvis Presley from the hips down”, according to Casale. They designed Motown-inspired aluminium-coloured naugahyde suits and bright red ziggurat-shaped hats called “energy domes” in what proved to be the most enduring of the various Devo styles.

“Girl U Want” bombed. However, an influential DJ in Florida, Kal Rudman, picked out another track from the album, “Whip It”, and the song took on a life of its own, broke into the top 20 in 1980 and won more and more devo-tees.

“Whip It”, with its motorik shuffle beat, mutated “Oh, Pretty Woman” riff, sci-fi sirens and staccato vocal lines was infectious. Its success represented the birth of American synth-pop. Various synths, including an Ondioline salvaged from Pink Floyd’s trash, were used on the album, with the whip sound created using a EML ElectroComp 500.

But something was lost in translation. Casale had aimed for a similar effect to Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, which featured meaningless capitalist sloganism. “Go forward! Move ahead!” and the order to “Whip it good” where intended to satirise the Horatio Alger/Dale Carnegie-style attitude of American idealism.

Yet as the song climbed the charts, Devo found that most of the DJs plugging the song had assumed an onanistic or sadomasochistic intent. More evidence of devolution. Amused, Devo opted to reinforce the misinterpretation with a video that was later played incessantly when MTV launched in 1981, prolonging the song’s life and influence.

Having pioneered conceptual videos, Devo produced a video inspired by a newspaper article they had read, about the owner of a dude ranch who would use a bullwhip to remove his wife’s clothes for paying customers. In the video, the energy dome-clad band looked incongruous against a ranch background filled with cowboys cheering inanely as Mothersbaugh recreated the scene. Once again, the attempt to lampoon the American image was lost on most viewers who took the misogynistic scene at face value.

Devo never had a bigger hit, but their influence resonated in unexpected ways beyond electronica and oddball new wave into hectic skate punk and heavy metal. Moby was one of the unlikely acts who covered “Whip It” with his terrible sludge metal version.

Grunge was another genre that wore its Devo worship on its sleeve. Kurt Cobain described Devo as “the most challenging and subversive” underground act to have cracked the mainstream. Pearl Jam donned the energy domes and did a crowd-pleasing version of “Whip It” on tour, while Nirvana covered its B-side “Turnaround” to great effect.

The song has also resurfaced regularly in films, TV and advertising. The Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, The Muppets and Veep have all riffed on “Whip It”, while the 1980s-drenched show Stranger Things used it to add exhilaration to the opening scenes of its second season.

Devo co-opted advertising slogans such as “rust never sleeps” (later used by Neil Young, who had heard the band chanting it) into their early art and music. In turn, “Whip It” has been co-opted by advertisers urging consumers to buy floor mops, yogurt, and toothbrushes that play the song inside the mouth of the person using it.

Mothersbaugh was also seen wearing an energy dome on stage at the 2015 Oscars performing “Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie— a song he produced — proving that devolution is real if you just look around you.

What are your memories of ‘Whip It’? Let us know in the comments section below.

‘The Life of a Song Volume 2: The fascinating stories behind 50 more of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.

Music credits: Virgin Records; Sony. 

Picture credit: Ed Perlstein/Redferns/Getty Images