Some of you may be familiar with the bootleg 11 Tracks of Outtakes, which purports to contain “demos” of various Whack-era tunes. (In actuality, these “demos” are often just whatever intermediate version of something the purloining party decided to slip into his pocket that day). This Outtakes boot includes a “Medical Science Demo” which is a near-final version of the cut that eventually ended up as a bonus track on the official Japanese release of 11TOW
In honor of W’s B-day, we post an earlier but still “mid-level” demo of the tune, with no vocals. And thanks to Matt for the accompanying slideshow that won’t let us forget our current Medical Science nightmare :-)
There is in fact an even earlier (earliest?) demo of this tune that’s not available to us right now; if and when I do “reacquire” it, we’ll add it to this page.
But this version is a pretty good representation of the bones he settled on for the final CD version
I’ve also included below some of his early brainstorming lyrics — where he’s working out rhymes and couplets, zeroing on wording choices, and working over segments that he’ll later stitch together into cohesive verses and choruses. Listening to Walter’s tapes as he’s writing a tune — a process also observed IRL — one thing you hear is while the basic track loops and he “free sings” his melody over it, he’s mainly scatting, but occasionally drops in a phrase or couplet. At some point he stops the loop, and you hear him writing in his notepad…and the next time the track loop starts, he’s now got a few more couplets…then another pause in the track, the sound of notebook rustling and writing, and then another looping track where larger segments of the lyrics have taken shape. And thus he fills and tweaks and constructs his way — updating and editing notebook pages as he goes — into one hell of a tale. It’s also always interesting for me to see his “asides” in his notebooks, or at the end of a computer file. These are often bits that he probably never means to turn into a lyric, necessarily, but are thoughts or images or expressions that set a mood, or especially, express an attitude. Watching him write (alone and with DF) you can see how these sometimes-extensive “emotional/attitudinal backstories” can play a very large part in the eventual construction of such psychologically deep, cohesive, and resonate narrative “voices”.
(Teaser: We’ll see quite a bit more of this sort of thing in our next “Deep Dive”, now under construction)
And speaking of the Medical Science lyrics: It’s occurred to us, as it may have to many of you, that we’ve heard songs of this general topic many times from Walter; Danger Zone, Darkling Down, and any number of other songs are narrated from within this particular maelstrom.
But this time, he’s no longer in the morass himself, but has come out the other side. Now, he’s out of it, he’s past it … and observing pitiful others through the lens of experience. Thus, his commentary is soaked with knowledge of the all-too-certain outcome, the utter impotence of intervention…and, above all, with a sharp-edged anger and bitterness about what he’s watching as it all goes down. I’ve always found this lyrical stance particularly powerful and moving. Matt wisely observed it’s sort of like Couchriders In The Sky … but without any of the latter’s empathy and warmth.
So when you queue up the final CD version,
“Put your little snowshoes on.
Then ask yourself:
Is you or is you not
The silly twit that time forgot?
And prepare to hear One more sour disquisition (Put yourself in his position)
[Click lyric pages to enlarge.
Note: In some browsers, once you click the pic below and get it on a page,
there are enlarge arrows on that page. SMH]
So I’ve been revisiting these forums a lot lately, as I did something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time now (and which I know plenty of people here have already done), namely: put together a personal playlist of WBM demos & rarities.
For the most part I arranged things chronologically (as best I could, anyway), and for “liner notes” I mostly relied on posts here by D-Mod and Matt and a few others. But for the 11ToW portion of my bespoke anthology, I wanted to hold back the Maui rehearsal of “Surf and/or Die” and put it side by side with “Medical Science” as culminating companion pieces. And—for show-and-tell time—here, inspired by y’all, is what I wrote:
The Last Act of the Show
In principle, a run-through of “Surf and/or Die” belongs in the basket with all the other Maui tracks. And the rehearsal take below is a relatively early one, nothing special, with the Tribe banging on all cylinders but still feeling out their approach. Yet the song itself is so singular (“the high point, the crowning achievement, of 11ToW”—yeah: like Matt Kerns, I, too, am saying that) that its anthological reprise deserves a kind of ultimo pride of place. Or, as it happens, penultimo, as there’s also one last finished tune out of Maui, “Medical Science,” that Dr. Becker only saw fit to lay on the Japanese. The aforementioned S. Victor Aaron actually squeezes both tunes into the same breath, deeming it “a real head scratcher as to why [“Medical Science”] got left off the American version” of Whack. It may be “no ‘Surf and/or Die,’” he says, somewhat deprecatingly (allowing as how “MS” nevertheless has a “good groove” that “goes a long way“),“but it belonged on the same album.”
Of course an apple is no orange, either. And yet: different species, genus, family, order, class, and phylum…but same kingdom. Just like W. H. Auden’s Old Masters, when the late 20th-century word-painter W. C. Becker sees “Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky”—or, for that matter, a perfectly ordinary “bruised and battered” soul, “[l]ooking for a lonely heart to take refuge in”—he doesn’t flinch, or look away, or sail calmly on. (About suffering he was never wrong, the Moody Bastard; how well he understands its human position.) He examines the thing, he turns it over, he proffers a pitiless diagnosis. “And so what about… / … that hypothetical spectre, your gilt-edged soul / Which defied many perils, in the face of all reason…?” Well, you know…medical science is helpless in a case like this.
P.S.: and just wanted to add some very belated but very deep gratitude for this site and everything on it. It's been such a soul-tonic to spend so much time with Walter's music again. Three-plus albums' worth and counting...crazy, and beautiful.
https://somethingelsereviews.com/2022/03/13/walter-becker-medical-science-demo
Wow! Yet another WB gem. Thanks
Thank you so much for this! Always been one of my personal faves. Btw, any idea why it was "Japan only". Such an amazing track... why were we domestically unworthy?
I've always loved Medical Science and was flabbergasted that it didn't make it onto the standard release of the album. It's such a catchy tune, and the lyrics are absolute top notch. I laughed out loud the first time I heard Never known for passing on a chance to just say "yo". Great to hear this early version. Thanks.
Just what I needed this weekend ..: thank you so so much
Love this, thank you @Moderator: D-Mod ! It's mesmerizing, such a powerful groove that it's literally almost hypnotizing. I may put it on loop and see what it does to me haha!
Hey, is there any chance you can also make available a download of the final CD version of this great tune? It may be the only officially released tune by WB that I do not have in my digital playlist. Thanks again!!