Talk:They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!

"This is the first known instance of backmasking in popular music." The Beatles' "Rain" was first, wasn't it?

The singer's dog? I thought he was calling her a dog in the metaphoric sense.

Yeah, it wouldnt make much sense if she was literally a dog.

My original "that's definitely not a dog" comment deleted, because it's apparently official from "Napoleon" himself that the song is about a dog, according to Songfacts. He wrote the song over a period of nine months, one verse at a time, and the idea that it was a dog was added at pretty much the last second, to lighten an otherwise "sick" song. The song's sequel, "They're Coming To Get Me Again, Ha-Haaa!", makes it more clear. That still doesn't explain the "reply" by Josephine XV on one of Samuels own albums, entitled "I'm Happy They Took You Away, Ha-Haaa!", nor does it explain why he cooked food and cleaned house for a dog, but whatever. It's official and stuff. - 67.191.254.83 11:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Probably he was forced to refer to the dog, although it is obviously that it is about a girl; the ASPCA might refer to himself, so that he sees himself as a poor animal which has been mistreated (by his ex-girl). --212.241.65.41 15:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

He's definitely talking about his dog running away. Read the lyrics. The comedy of the song is that he makes you first think he's talking about a woman, and then you find out it was only about his dog. This article needs editing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vinzklorthos (talk • contribs) 07:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Just look at the album cover, he's standing next to a fire hydrant, holding a novelty "invisible dog" collar and leash. You're right, the song is about a missing dog.--RLent (talk) 19:38, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * But, he says she laughed when he told her he'd go crazy if she ran away. That doesn't sound like it's referring to a literal dog at all. I suspect something similar to "Timothy" might be going on here; the Buoys claimed that Timothy was a mule in order to lessen the impact of the song; perhaps Napoleon was doing the same thing with the dog thing. FiredanceThroughTheNight (talk) 00:03, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Billboard Hot 100 Chart Run
The song debuted at 50, then went to 11, 5, 3, 5 and plummeted to 37 then off the chart. Some editor keeps removing the correct information (which much be sourced, golly, even though it's WRONG). The song peaked in its fourth week and had its final week on the chart in its sixth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.229.113.100 (talk) 19:34, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

!aaaH
Is the B-side quite literally the recording of the A-side run backwards - with no extra instrumentation or augmentation etc - or did the band "play" the song backwards? -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 13:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

My mom has the 45 for this song, and I can attest that it definitely is the A-side run backwards, with no extra work other than reversing it. It starts at the end of the song and works its way forward with lots of fun backward singing that I always found hilarious as a kid. -- (Paul Pigg) 71.197.234.174 (talk) 06:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course it is the song backwards, the fun was spinning the B side backwards on the turntable and hearing the A side. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.33.255.17 (talk) 06:22, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Covers and other appearances
This section could use some cleanup. It should probably be in chronological order and a few of the less notable appearances can be removed. Twalls (talk) 18:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Children of Bodom
I attended a Children of Bodom concert on the 12th of September, 2008, in Norfolk, Virginia, and they played the first 20 seconds or so of this song as an intro to their set. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zippeh (talk • contribs) 03:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Nurse with Wound's cover version
"...sung slowly over implacable noises" - what on earth does that mean? "Implacable" means it can't be appeased or pacified. I haven't heard this particular version, so I'm not even going to guess at what was meant by this statement: has anyone got an adjective that would work in this context? Dom Kaos (talk) 16:33, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Chart position?
The text says:


 * Released on Warner Bros. Records, the bizarre depiction of mental illness became an instant hit in the United States that summer, reaching number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart.

But I've read many places (including in the Napoleon XIV article here) that the song reached #1 "nationally". What does that mean, exactly? And isn't that worth mentioning (and maybe explaining) here, too?

Australian Reissue?
I have vague memories of this being reissued in Australia (but not making the Top Forty) somewhere around 1980 or 1981. Can anyone confirm this? Eligius (talk) 06:20, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know about it being released as a single in Australia after its 1966 issue, but it was on a K-Tel compilation called Looney Tunes in 1976, which is where I first heard it. MartinSFSA (talk) 02:02, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
 * https://www.discogs.com/Various-K-Tel-Presents-Looney-Tunes/release/1620030

Gonna Buy Me a Dog
Michael Nesmith sang the lead? I thought it was Micky Dolenz who sang the lead on "Gonna Buy Me a Dog," on their first released album The Monkees. jen (talk) 16:30, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Major Edit
1. Moved chart position info to the intro section.

2. Created new heading "Background" with details about the formation of the song.

3. Created a "Story" section which tells the story of the song. Removed the unsourced suggestion that the "Ha Haaa" of "They're coming to Take Me Away, Ha Haaa!" might refer to a female dog.

4. Created a new section "Backlash" incorporating the previous info re backlash to the song, and included additional info (protests/plane banner).

5. Removed "WABC (AM 77) played the song back to back several times during one afternoon" as it did not make sense where it was. Guyburns (talk) 17:23, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

And a spoof of Napoleon's exile?
The article mentions the appearance of a spoof of Napoleon on the cover. Why not a comment in the article that "They're coming to take me away, ha-ha" could also be a humorous (?) reference to Napoleon being taken to exile (Elba, and later St. Helena)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.82 (talk) 16:03, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

The song's about a dog, not a woman
Reading the lyrics (http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~norm/TakeMeAway.html), listening to the words, looking at the cover, clearly indicates this song is about a mentally ill person talking about his dog who has run away. Therefore, I have edited the "Story" section to that dated 30 Mar 2012 (based on that dated 17 Aug 2011). Guyburns (talk) 10:14, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

So the mentally ill person is otherwise in full possession of their faculties, and the dog actually laughed at him? You know, the song is not "about" anything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.33.255.17 (talk) 06:20, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

This is synthesis. I recommend a primary source, or a source that directly quotes the writer that says this. Not personal interpretations, that's WP:SYN. Keith D. Tyler &para; 03:57, 19 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Just to be clear, the writer/artist is quoted by sources as saying that after he composed the spoken lyrics, he feared it came off as a sick joke at the expense of the mentally ill, so he deliberately added the line about the dog in the third verse so people would realize it was about a runaway dog and not a human. This type of "setup then switch" humor might be considered lame today, but as a 7th grader in 1966, I can confirm it was the height of MAD magazine style juvenile hilarity among young people (parents of course did not think it was funny). This was long before hip hop culture where women are casually referred to as mutts and ho's in song lyrics, so I can understand some younger editors not being able to believe it was just a novelty joke record where a guy sounds like he's talking about a woman but it turns out he's talking about a dog. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:12, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Recording Technique
The mention of a VFO which alters the pitch without affecting tempo is incorrect. A VFO only is used for varying the recording speed, and the tempo changes accordingly. More complex digital transforms, not available in 1966 technology, would be needed to change pitch without affecting tempo. This song was obviously recorded on multiple tracks in two stages: first the instrumental portion was recorded, then the vocal was added. When recording the vocal, the recorder speed was slowed in certain places while Samuels kept in time with the slowed tempo. On playback at normal speed, the vocal pitch was higher wherever the recording speed had been slowed. Refer to Top40Bill video on YouTube for a recreation of the song the way it would have sounded when the vocal part was recorded. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wmjohn6217 (talk • contribs) 16:50, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, in part. My only direct experience with audio VFO's is with analog synthesizers, but they were also used to control tape speed in high-quality recording equipment. This method would certainly change the tempo of the recording as well as the pitch. Changing pitch without affecting tempo could be done with existing analog devices by using a Vocoder, used musically as early as 1956. However, this technology would still have been relatively unrefined at the time that Ha-Haaa! was recorded, and would have been coarse and obvious in the recording. (The same technology forms the basis of the modern digital "Auto-Tune" effect used in music, which even today become obvious when used in excessive pitch changes.) Adjusting tape speed during recording and mastering is a simple method that audio engineers had a great deal of experience with, and would be the obvious way to achieve the desired effect. Any other method available at the time would be expensive, complex, difficult to control and would produce poor results. Until someone can provide better evidence, I'm marking the sentence as "Citation Needed". Additionally, the statement contradicts the explanation provided in the "Record Structure" section. 75.174.23.124 (talk) 04:01, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * As long as these technical points are under consideration, I take exception to the statement " He had learned a way to alter the pitch of a track using a potentiometer (a tape speed control)."
 * What he had learned was how to alter the pitch of a track by varying the speed of the tape on the tape recorder.


 * Phrased the way it is, it is like saying "he had learned a way to light cigars using his thumb (a cigar lighter activator)." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.89.176.249 (talk) 19:35, 17 June 2019 (UTC)


 * You're correct. Since content can only be added to WP if backed by reliable sources, I have found two, and made the appropriate edits. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:28, 17 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I also agree with the criticisms above. It is nonsense to say that the pitch would be changed without changing tempo on analog equipment (they're not talking about a modern digital doppler shift effect).  Anyone who has played with variable speed multitrack tapes (which were available commercially in later years) would be familiar with how it would actually be done, and which is how he describes it in the 'songfacts' interview that someone cited (https://www.songfacts.com/facts/napoleon-xiv/theyre-coming-to-take-me-away-ha-haaa), where he describes slowing the rhythm track he's recording with ("...so I'm hearing 'chunka, chunka, chuunka, chuuunka, chuuuuuunka, chuuuuuuuuuunka...' ").  I rewrote a couple of the sentences to make clear that he was *slowing* the tape during recording to get the effect. DKEdwards (talk) 07:35, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry, your edits didn’t clarify. You removed a fair amount from the cited sources and substituted your own analysis. The existing text "gradually adjusting the VFO and the pace of his vocals to produce the desired effect"...encompasses the "slowing down" of the pace of his vocals you wish to make clear. I think maybe the parenthetical I've added might be a better way to do this. And it would avoid removing the text regarding the use of the echoplex and siren effects. - LuckyLouie (talk) 11:57, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Upon further reflection, I think your edit was fine, it does help clarify the tape speed effect. And the text I thought was removed was merely shifted. So no WP:BRD cycle needed. Apologies. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:32, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Composer(s)
Info I found says: Mike Maltese, Warren Foster, Billy May. 198.53.137.96 (talk) 03:41, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Source of drum beat.
I have read that the drums are simply a loop of the intro beat of Bob Dylan's "Everybody Must Get Stoned." Keith D. Tyler &para; 03:59, 19 February 2019 (UTC)


 * That would be ‘Rainy Day Women #12 & 35’, yes?THX1136 (talk) 02:14, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Maybe the first rap song ever
It has been observed. Drsruli (talk) 18:56, 16 November 2023 (UTC)