“Girl I Want You”
by The Seeds
1966 song
The Seeds included the erratically awesome "Girl I Want You" on their legendary debut album The Seeds in 1966. It’s one of the more genuinely psychedelic performances on the album with its Eastern-ish echoed intro, fuzz guitar, and furious outro that collapses into derangement.
Overall, "Girl I Want You" is like a simpler version of "Evil Hoodoo", a little more restrained (and much shorter) and less packed with stuff. Simplifying, somehow, the already-crude riff of that song, which precedes it on the LP, Sky Saxon’s vocal melody tends to match the fuzz bass note for note, as he sings lyrics that are almost entirely contained within the song’s title (though there is a reference to “night and day” as you might expect).
After about 1:45, Sky unexpectedly begins loudly babbling, very fast, and the band all jarringly increase their ferocity by roughly 1,000%. They get faster and faster, approaching genuine mania. Someone in the group starts screaming; Sky keeps speaking in tongues (though he is ultimately drowned out by the musicians). There must have been broken drumsticks, chipped guitar picks and snapped strings all around by the end of this intense thirty seconds!
Alternate version
In 2012 Big Beat released an alternate version of "Girl I Want You", showcasing a different Sky Saxon vocal (an overdub called take 6a). In this version Sky loses his mind again and, infamously, yells out his phone number into the spit-splattered microphone. This version was added as the B-side to a limited edition vinyl single by Big Beat’s parent company Ace (the A-side of which was the full, unedited "Pushin' Too Hard") and also as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of The Seeds.
