The story of The Shaggs is a truly captivating one, and my personal favorite music story. Before we get into it, I want you to try something. Try to imagine if an alien species had studied human music from the 1960's, and then attempted to recreate this type of music, but without having taken any formal music lessons.
This is how I describe the Shaggs. This is music that seems beyond human comprehension. It lacks the basic fundamentals of rock music. The melodies are nonsensical, the structure is nonexistent, and on top of all this, the drummer and guitar are consistently on completely different tempos. Ya know, I think it's better if you just listen:
I know right? What the hell is going on here?
Well, it all started when a man named Austin Wiggin who, when he was young, got a palm reading done. This palm reading predicted that he would marry a strawberry blonde woman, have two sons after she died and that his daughters would form a popular music group. The first two predictions turned out to be true, so Mr. Wiggin set out to make the third prediction come true as well.
Except there was a problem. These girls did not want to be in a band. They hated rehearsing, but their stubborn father went as far as to pull them out of school and put them into music lessons to be in this band. What could they have done? It wasn't like they could fire their manager. It was their dad.
So finally they reluctantly scraped together enough songs for a 30 minute, 12 track mess of an album. Unsurprisingly, it did not sell well, and Mr. Wiggins dream of creating a famous rock band out of his daughters was crushed.
But, I have a confession to make: I love the Shaggs. Whenever I need a pick-me-up, I go right for their classic debut Philosophy of the World. Every time I listen to it, I can't help but smile and relish in the absurdity of it all.
However, it's not just the silliness of this record that makes it one of my favorites. This is truly one of the best avant-garde albums ever made. The problem with other avant-garde music is that it's trying to be weird, and the musicians secretly know what they're doing. But The Shaggs were actually attempting to make normal music, and they simply lacked the skill and knowledge to pull it off. This is the purest form of outsider music. This is what all avant-garde musicians want to accomplish: complete musical incompetence. Plus, the lyrics are surprisingly introspective at times. I mean, this was made by a bunch of teenagers, so angst is expected, but these lyrics are so simple that they're actually pretty effective.
There are many things I wonder/There are many things I don't/It seems as though the things I wonder most/Are the things I never find out
I wonder why our minds drift astray/I wonder why life goes on this way/I wonder why we have to part/We both know it'll break our heart*
It really is a confounding record. Nothing else out there is like it. It completely changes your view of music and what can constitute a song, and what it means to be "musically talented". In a traditional sense, these girls were awful musicians. But if that's true, then why do I and so many other enjoy this record so much? Sometimes, a lack of understanding can create a newfound sense of creativity. The Shaggs didn't know how to make rock and roll, so they had to reinvent it.
*From "Things I Wonder", written by Dorothy Wiggin
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