“Daisy Mae”
by The Seeds
1965 song
"Daisy Mae", the b-side of The Seeds’ very first release, the "Can't Seem To Make You Mine" single, was short and raucous. Recorded on April 21, 1965, "Daisy Mae" couldn’t be more different than its flip side in several respects.
For one thing, "Daisy Mae" is pure punk insanity. It seems to take its cue from the early rock and roll of Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the basic “Blue Suede Shoes” beat, but is more manic. Sky Saxon’s crazed, breathless vocal give it a super-snotty, almost unwholesome air.
Great as it is, the short "Daisy Mae" always seemed destined to b-side status. Indeed, it did not appear on the band’s debut album The Seeds, nor was it chosen as the b-side when "Can't Seem To Make You Mine" was re-released as a single in 1967. (It did, however, make it onto a 4-song French EP in September 1965.)
Except for increasingly rare copies of the first single or the French EP, the first time that most people got to hear "Daisy Mae" was 1977, when GNP Crescendo included the song on its rarities album Fallin' Off The Edge. Since then, it has appeared on various compilations.
According to the liner notes of the 2012 Big Beat expanded reissue of The Seeds, fifteen takes were required to get a usable version of "Daisy Mae", significantly more than most other Seeds tracks of the era. The problem was that Sky Saxon was not adhering to the song’s beat; his lines consistently went on several beats too long and the band had to guess when to come back in. The 2012 expanded CD includes take 1 of "Daisy Mae", illustrating the point beautifully: the energy is there but Sky is too undisciplined!
