Walk the Dinosaur (1988)
- J. Karson Key
- Jul 17, 2015
- 8 min read
"Boom-Boom-Acka-Lacka-Boom-Boom"
Film has Jurassic Park. The written word has Doyle’s The Lost World. Television has The Flintstones. Well, ladies and gentlemen, what’s the iconic dinosaur moment in music? As much as I want to argue on behalf of Charmer’s Mesozoic Mind (my thoughts have already been captured as part of a previous entry) or “Weird Al” Yankovic’s Isla Nublar-centric parody of MacArthur Park, it doesn’t carry the same clout as Dr. Alan Grant or Professor Challenger or Barney Rubble. Back to the question at hand—where are all of the songs celebrating Dinosauria—strike that, where are all the good songs celebrating Dinosauria? People, wake-up call—we are living in a world entirely devoid of praise-worthy dinosaur ditties and Jurassic jingles! Quite frankly, that’s not a world that I want to live in.
Wait a second—I know exactly what you are thinking. What about Walk the Dinosaur by Was (Not Was)? It was pretty popular. It had a cool dance…ok, it had a dance. Hell, it even made it into some other significant dinosaur media properties like Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. And, most importantly, it has the word “dinosaur” in the song title and the chorus! So it has to be good, right?
You know by now that I, in most cases, have a rather congenial disposition and positive outlook on almost everything dinosaur or pseudo-dinosaur related. At the end of the day, a Dilophosaurus that spits venomous slime is still better than, let’s say, a camel that hurls toxic saliva. Inaccurate dinosaurs are still the second most super rad things in the world of pop culture. With that being said, I cannot allow this song to be considered the flag bearer for Mesozoic melodies. It has nothing to do with the entertainment value of the song itself—it’s just that the song has nothing to do with dinosaurs. I hate to break the news to you—but the song is about nuclear Armageddon.
But to get to the end of the world, we start in what some consider the best representation of the end of the world—Detroit, Michigan.
It’s worth mentioning a bit about the band. Walk the Dinosaur is seemingly soaked in the masochistic waters of one-hit wonderment, however, much to the surprise to the majority of casual music fans—the legacy of Was (Not Was) extends far beyond the play frequency of its MTV-era prehistoric dance hit. The quirky and off-beat gathering of funk-forward humorists had a very quirky and off-beat genesis; the old story of two childhood comrades from suburban Detroit—one a college educated Beat poet, part-time musician, and regular jazz critic for the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner, the other a college dropout and journeyman blues player living in poverty with a newborn son. Oh yeah, they also decided to become stage brothers and adopt pseudonyms. Because that is what you do. Thus, David Weiss and Donald Fagenson became “David Was” and “Don Was”—and they founded, in 1979, Was (Not Was).
The Was Brothers blended elements of jazz, rock, and disco with satirical humor, socially fueled commentary, and dry wit. From their inception, they were noticeably unique—occupying space across genres as diverse as dance and blues. In 1980, the New York Times quite elegantly and accurately referred to them as “the funkier art-funk band.” To add some soulful vocal chops that would flesh out the sounds that the Was duo had in mind, they recruited the charismatic and dapper Sir Harry Bowens and quintessential soul dynamo, “Sweet Pea” Atkinson. Both Bowens’ and Atkinson’s storied careers have included stints singing alongside Bob Dylan, Elton John, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Bob Seger, Paula Abdul, Lyle Lovett, and the late B.B. King and George Jones. They are neatly filed away in that “really great artists that you never heard of” category.
Was (Not Was) released their first studio album in 1981under the avant-garde label, ZE Records. Their follow-up—Born to Laugh at Tornadoes—was released two years later and featured not only a wide array of musical styles (pop to cocktail jazz to synth to hard rock) but also featured a crazy cast of guest vocalists such as Ozzy Osbourne and Mel Torme. After a five-year hiatus, Was (Not Was) secured commercial success with 1988’s What Up, Dog? The album featured their top two best-selling singles, Walk the Dinosaur and Spy in the House of Love, in addition to vocal cameos by Frank Sinatra, Jr., guitar icon Stevie Salas, and writing credits for Elvis Costello. Despite the upward trajectory of the band, they only managed to produce one additional album (1990’s Are You Okay? featuring a UK Top 5 single, Shake Your Head) before fading into obscurity for the better part of two decades. They did return in 2008 with a new studio album, Boo!, and hit the road–appearing on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Later…with Jools Holland to kick off their United States tour.
In 2004, hometown columnist Brian J. Bowe, in a Detroit Metro Times article, referred to Was (Not Was) as “an endearing mess…a sausage factory of funk, rock, jazz and electronic dance music, all providing a boogie-down backdrop for a radical (and witty) political message of unbridled personal freedom and skepticism of authority.” They epitomized Detroit. Unfortunately, their biggest hit, despite its name, did not epitomize Dinosauria.
Walk the Dinosaur’s metaphor-rich lyrics aren’t a tough nut to crack—as a dinosaur fan, you know that something is up when you hear “Miami Vice” and “monkey skulls to go”. The band has stated in numerous interviews that the song is about the end of the world—so we aren’t breaking new ground—but we can take a deeper look into that quality of their artistic prose.
Boom boom acka-lacka lacka boom Boom boom acka-lacka boom boom
Ok, the sounds of bombs. Got it.
It was a night like this, forty million years ago I lit a cigarette, picked up a monkey skull to go The sun was spitting fire, the sky was blue as ice I felt a little tired, so I watched Miami Vice And walked the dinosaur, I walked the dinosaur Open the door, get on the floor Everybody walk the dinosaur
Right out of the gate, the song cannot be about actual dinosaurs. The timeline—from 1988—would be a good twenty-five million years short of the Mesozoic. In addition, it would also be well before modern humans that could, ya’ know, smoke cigarettes or watch Miami Vice. My immediate conclusion is that the narrator is telling the story of the “end of the world” to a contemporary, forty million years after the events—but, as would likely be millions of years after an apocalyptic catastrophe—only fragments of fact have been uncovered and, subsequently, misinterpreted. Maybe cigarettes did survive to be sewn into the fabric of post-Armageddon life—as did Miami Vice (thank the gods, right?)—but, he inferred, based on the common actions of the extant descendants of those nuclear victims, that they ate monkey skulls. Not a too dissimilar process from current paleontological practices.
I met you in a cave, you were painting buffalo
I said I’d be your slave, follow wherever you go
That night we split a rattlesnake and danced beneath the stars
You fell asleep, I stayed awake and watched the passing cars
And walked the dinosaur, I walked the dinosaur
Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody walk the dinosaur
The theory holds up—cars survived and can be theorized as part of the pre-bomb past, though, the scavenger-focused civilization that grew after the demise of humanity projects their dietary habits upon the apocalyptic yarn.
One night I dreamed of New York
You and I roasting blue pork
In the Statue of Liberty’s torch
Elvis landed in a rocket ship
Healed a couple of leapers and disappeared
But where was his beard?
The geographical location of New York survived—as did, somewhat predictably, the Statue of Liberty. It is a rule that you can’t have a post-apocalyptic world without Lady Liberty. I personally love the mention of “blue pork”—it could either be a supposed species of animal that only existed before the catastrophe and helps places the story in the proper time; or it could be another example of projecting current food sources into the tale of the demise of the old world. Once again, the idea that the survivors jumbled and misconstrued the fragmentary evidence that survived the “big one” can be best captured in the lines depicting Elvis in the role of the Hunka’ Hunka’ Burnin’ Savior.
A shadow from the sky much too big to be a bird
A screaming crashing noise louder than I’ve ever heard
It looked like two big silver trees that somehow learned to soar
Suddenly a summer breeze and a mighty lion’s roar
I killed the dinosaur, I killed the dinosaur
Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody kill the dinosaur
This is the kicker. Though contemporary man is familiar with cigarettes, cars, the Statue of Liberty, and Don Johnson—they can’t quite figure out planes and bombs. The “shadow” and the “big silver trees” aren’t too difficult to decipher—and the explosion is described as a “summer breeze” and a “mighty lion’s roar.” And the majority of the world is wiped out.
So, what is the “dinosaur”. Why do we have to “open the door” and “get on the floor” to walk him? And why do we eventually kill him? It is one of the great mysteries and debates in human culture. There are many theories, but I tend to lean towards the simplistic hypothesis—it was just a dance that was known to exist prior to the nuclear holocaust, possibly originating in 1988 from a little Detroit-based band called Was (Not Was). I think the tongue-in-cheek egotistical subtext is pretty darn clever. The humans that survived the disaster obtained knowledge of this catchy jig and assumed that it was a common practice before the world was destroyed. So, therefore, you would seemingly do the dance while watching Miami Vice or passing cars—until the a huge bomber jet unloaded some nukes and, effectively, “killed the dinosaur.”
At the end of the day, does it live in the rarified air of Dylan’s folk-poetry or Bowie’s Dadaist rock abstraction? Probably not. But, I do think the lyrical competency of Walk the Dinosaur deserves a bit more credit than it receives by most critics.
Now, the video—not so much. Seriously, what did I just watch?
The gritty, dark imagery that the song can conjure up is nowhere to be found in the overly 80’s cabaret feel of Walk the Dinosaur’s music video. Visually, Was (Not Was) is a veritable motley crew of musicians led by the tuxedoed, Big Band-era Bowens and the straight-from-Havana Atkinson. Amidst the animated dinosaur clips from Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur and some very “Fresh Prince”-esque graffiti graphics, the most memorable part of the video—and the key reason for its constant airplay—were the four Raquel Welch-inspired cavewomen. At one point, for instructional purposes, our quartet of scantily clad cave cuties slowly demonstrate how to “walk the dinosaur”—complete with subtitles and bouncing ball. Eventually, viewers are treated to some “normal” people that invade the set and start performing the sauropod-inspired routine. We have a pudgy cowboy, some folks that look like middle management material, and a creepy guy that probably sells copiers. As over-the-top and pandering as the prehistoric babes are—you desperately want them back on the screen; they at least have a purpose. The upbeat vibe does not synch with the lyrical foundation of the song—they even leave out the “Elvis as Jesus” verse—and it’s very much an unabashed attempt to succeed in the “sizzle over substance” world of MTV-era America. Walk the Dinosaur’s video sells sex and a goofy dance while the song speaks to the bleak future riddled with a high likelihood of nuclear Armageddon. This disjointedness has left Walk the Dinosaur on the scrap heap of critically panned “one-hit wonders” that offer no value to the world of music. Its artistic legacy is probably an unfair one—done in by a commercially-focused video that pays no respect to the abstract lyricism of the song itself. But, like media that manages to somehow connect to the public despite the expert’s cries of contempt and disapproval, Walk the Dinosaur has lived on in the form of covers by popular artists, inclusion in dinosaur-related films and television, college band playlists, and Internet memes. It has absolutely nothing to do with Dinosauria—but Walk the Dinosaur brings the “apocalyptic pep”.
The Super Official “Of A Mesozoic Mind” Rating
(out of a possible 5 Public Domain Triceratops Heads)
Was (Not Was) album, What Up, Dog?, can be purchased at most music stores in addition to the major online providers such as Amazon and iTunes. The video of Walk the Dinosaur can be seen here.
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