Talk:Secret Treaties

Concerning the Back Cover and Colour Sleeve
I was the person who put in the original comment concerning the "animal sacrifice" pictures on the back cover of the LP. OK, I start at a disadvantage, being (i) British, (ii) a person who got into B.Ö.C. late - I was too young to appreciate good rock in the early seventies when I was yet to get into double figures age-wise. I started turning on to B.Ö.C. in the eighties and nineties and collected their LP's retrospectively. Therefore (iii), I am very likely not to have seen the originally released American LP covers, only later versions with any reprints, changes and amendments thought appropriate for the European market. Hence the comment about CBS fighting shy of releasing a version that might have offended the British market (A fact, not speculation:- perceived cruelty to animals doesn't play well in this country. Even among rockers. A record company concerned about sales and/or bad publicity would be stupid not to take a point like this into account.

Reference the "Sniff the Glove" scenes in the film "Spinal Tap", where the Tap offend American sensitivities with an LP cover which they are forced to change, despite their protests which are over-ruled by company suits.

Put simply, we are more ready to forgive the crass (and historically inaccurate) line in "ME-262" about see these English planes go burn.. than we are to forgive gratuituous cruelty to animals, you know? The Royal Air Force might have lost 60,000 dead over Germany, but they were rational adults who knew the risks when they signed up for Bomber Command. Dogs, on the other hand, are perceived as not just a family pet, but a member of the family. Harm them at your peril. Odd values, I know, but that's part of being British. ) Also, if I'd seen a version of Secret Treaties with graphic images of animal sacrifice on the back cover, I'd have remembered! On the versions I've seen here, the back cover art is nothing more controversial than an alternative version of the front cover art - the five band members gathered in front of an ME-262 jet fighter (which by the way was almost exclusively used against American bombers operating by day, whatever the lyrics claim), with several very much alive dogs, possibly Dalmatians, maybe hunting hounds of some sort, on leads. Incidentally, I've never seen a gatefold version of this LP - in Britain it's a single-sleeve job, the record was in a plain white liner with no LP-specific content. Perhaps I was looking at a later reprint? As I say, I wasn't there in 1974 for the original release - but I'd be very surprised if any LP with graphic images of animal torture made it to the record shops in this country in that year. (and nobody would give a flying stuff about mystical, religious, occult or symbolic justifications underlying the torture of animals, btw - they might still want to take the perpetrator and hang him by the balls on fine piano wire, regardless)

Hoping this clears it up

Paul C, Manchester, England (a tea-swilling conker-brained limey. Ah, intelligent debate! Oh, and I see thst I'm also "a pea brained tea gargling apologist/revisionist with injured fan sensibilities falsely insisting that the images do not exist". I must have ruffled somebody's feathers, then. But I genuinely have not seen these images and I was surprised to read that they were part of the original LP art - maybe in America, but I haven't seen them HERE. Genuinely. ) --86.156.193.45 00:10, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * ouch. return service.

my dear reed, you sure can write. yea verily, you are mighty with the poison pen. i bemoan the fact that my (twice) signed copy of this album was stolen by a rabid fan else i would scan and post right now. i have owned all of their lp's, vinyl, and cd's and consider myself an acquaintance, if not a friend of several of the band's members after decades of their gigs, a bit of partying, a few ferry rides together, and a lot of discussion about symbolism and magic as psychology...

it is a humbling thing to have your mondegreens corrected in person, by the authors...

i wax acerbic because i did not back up my previous entry and have forgotten some of the online research i did. i will be happy to substantiate all claims, including illustrations, as soon as this ale wears off.

if you have seen a version of the album without the watercolour painting on the sleeve or the rear graphics, it may be worth mentioning in the article as well - because it was probably a 90's reissue - after the band had been through a decade of persecution, being accused of 'satanism' by the then fledgeling religious right. "if they really think we're the devil - then let's send them to hell." - among their musical responses

even if you aren't intimately familiar with their work - you have to at least acknowledge their role as musicians musicians - a creative force that went largely unrecognized by the media and the general public for a long time.

many of the licks, riffs, and styles that became hard rock and metal emerged from their guitars in the early seventies... they are credited with inventing the term 'heavy metal' - the lyrics of me-262 on this album contain the first mention of those words in rock sensibility - rock critic richard meltzer, upon hearing the words in the lyrics, then applied it to the music in a review, making them, in effect the first 'heavy metal' band - or rather band called heavy metal.

The album coincides with keyboard player Allen Lanier's flirtation and subsequent (A year later) long term relationship with Patti Smith, hence her inputs are not coincidental. This album also foreshadow's drummer Albert Bouchard's current musical project, the hard rock band "The Brain Surgeons" with his lyrics "I'd like to prick your brain," in the song Career of Evil. This seemingly anti-intellectual stab is actually an erudite translation of Egyptian funerary process and is a direct translation of the hieroglyphics in the "Egyptian Book of the Dead" concerning the mummification of royalty.

The uploaded image "Sectreat2.jpg" in the wikipedia library is a scan from a web source featuring the slaughtered dogs, on the colored inner sleeve, part of the 'disputed' section of the entry, I am under the burden of proof for. I am not displaying it as it is a copyrighted image and thus a trap of sorts. But it is now privately accessible for reference by staff. I have not found a scan of the gatefold or the rear cover with the detail yet.

Thehip 05:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Are you quite done with your pedantic, self-serving grandstanding, or shall I brace myself for another round? The situation is quite simple actually - either offer a valid, verifiable citation for your assertions and their presence in the article will be permitted. Anything other than this will result in the continual removal of your repudiations. And, for the record, I could care very little for either Blue Oyster Cult or Secret Treaties - I'm merely a Wikipedian with an avowed interest in music and musical articles. I can legitimately say that I've no clue whether or not your claims are legitimate, though a cursory glance through the major search engines as well as ebay does little to assuage my concerns that this is yet another act of vandalism. Your unnecessarily acerbic demeanor does little to help as well. But I digress.


 * I've afforded you far more time than I intended to so I'll implore you once more: Cite your claims. - C. M. Reed 04:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Dead external links to Allmusic website – January 2011
Since Allmusic have changed the syntax of their URLs, 1 link(s) used in the article do not work anymore and can't be migrated automatically. Please use the search option on http://www.allmusic.com to find the new location of the linked Allmusic article(s) and fix the link(s) accordingly, prefereably by using the Allmusic template. If a new location cannot be found, the link(s) should be removed. This applies to the following external links: --CactusBot (talk) 10:48, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
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More about the Cover Art: Wolves not Dogs
I can't believe there is still controversy about the sleeve/cover art. First of all, the animals are WOLVES not domestic dogs. Wolves have deep connection with Adolph Hitler and the Nazi's - their headquarters on the Eastern front was called "Wolfsschanze" or "Wolf Lair." The Nazi internal plan to have commandos infiltrating behind enemy lines was code-named "Werwolf", and the symbol for that plan was called a "Wolf's Hook" or "Wolfsangel" - in German loosly meaning "heraldic charges". Therefore, for purposes of the song ME-262 (and therefore the album art) dead wolves are synonymous with "Dead Hitler".

ME-262, (the song on the LP that spawned the cover art) is an account of an air-raid from a GERMAN pilot's perspective. BOC was accused of everything from satanism to being Nazis (most of the band was Jewish - so that makes no sense whatsoever). Those accusations are clearly a case of the generic record-buying public "not getting it".

That is fully understandable since BOC was both sardonic and ironic in their lyrics, and was not everyone's cup of tea. But after all "ME-262, Prince of Turbo-Jets" may have been far superior technology, and the Nazi officers may have been blindly loyal to their Führer/Fuehrer... (Hitler's on the phone from Berlin...says 'I'm gonna make you a STAR..')  but alas it was all for naught...stardom for "Captain Von Ondine" was not to be. He may well have 'known the job' - but despite every advantage (more and better equipment, blind loyalty, superior logistic knowledge of the incoming British attack) the Germans were ultimately decisively defeated anyway. That's the irony. The contrast between "Glorious Warriors posing proudly with their Wolf-spirits(Hitler)" on the front of the record jacket and the empty, abandoned plane with the dead wolves scattered about (i.e- Hitler defeated all for naught) on the rear jacket. Perhaps I was and still am hopelessly naive but the idea of "gratuitous animal cruelty" has never once crossed my mind. Would a drawing of dead German pilots or SS officers scattered about been more acceptable? Apparently so to some animal rights' activists. I'm sympathetic to that point of view as well - there is nothing I hate more than animal cruelty of any kind. But we live in a society where hunting animals for pleasure is perfectly A-OK with the vast majority. Shoot Bambi- just don't mistreat my dog. But I digress...

BOC has also used positive animal imagery in other songs. In "Astronomy" - the last track of the LP, they sing "And don't forget my dog fixed and consequent..." "My dog" is a reference to the star/constellation Sirius - fixed (for purposes of navigation) and of consequence (if you pay attention to it you'll get to where you're going). Thank you for the opportunity to respond. I don't know if I did it correctly, in the right place, whatever. Hopefully so. Moucon (talk) 05:56, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Career of Evil source
"'Career of Evil' was the inspiration for the title of the 2015 novel of the same name written by J.K. Rowling under the pen name Robert Galbraith.” The source given says nothing about such an inspiration. Nicmart (talk) 09:04, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

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"Waves of the Danube" source
On Youtube, there are many versions of "Waves of the Danube" played on music boxes with large metal discs. They sounded slow, so I sped them up a qurter to a half. the Regina 15.5" Music Box version, sped up, is my bet. There are a few others that are quite similar.  Cheers! 2600:1700:DEA0:8D60:393F:54FF:5AA0:A46E (talk) 08:40, 18 March 2023 (UTC)