The Story Behind ‘They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!’
‘200 Greatest 60s Rock Songs’ Book Excerpt
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Novelty songs first appeared in the late 19th century and were popular on the radio into the 1980s. One of the weirdest and most successful was 1966’s “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” by Napoleon XIV.
Recording engineer Jerry Samuels, then 28, created the politically incorrect hit: a rant by a mental patient who had been dumped by his lover. The track does not include a note of music; a loop of snare drum, tambourine and claps pound out a rhythm that accompanies Samuels’ ravings. To enhance the effect of insanity, Samuels used a Variable Frequency Oscillator, or VFO, to gradually speed up the vocals, which were backed by a siren.
Samuels told Songfacts how, once he was armed with the new VFO technology, he came up with the lyric.
“I was sitting in a nice easy chair one night. It had a little vibrator on it and I was stoned because I loved to smoke grass. What popped into my head was the old Scottish tune, ‘The Campbells Are Coming.’ I didn’t know the title, but I’ll tell you who did: my friend Barry Hansen.
“He’s Dr. Demento; we’ve known each other for many, many years. I hummed it to him and he said, ‘Yeah, that’s “The Campbells Are Coming” and I thought, ‘da da dat dat da dat da da da da da . . . they’re coming to take me away, ha ha.’ There it was, and by understanding what I could do with that piece of equipment, I wrote this thing.”
It took Samuels nine months to complete the track. Samuels knew even in 1966 that a record poking fun of mental illness would bring criticism.
“I wrote one verse and the chorus and immediately I realized I was writing a sick joke. So I said, ‘This is no good, I’ll put it away.’ Three months later it was still running through my head; I pulled it out again and wrote the second verse and it was an even sicker joke. Finally about six months after that I decided I was going to finish it, and I was going to do something in that last verse that would throw things off a little bit, so I referred to the object — ‘They’re coming to take me away because of what YOU did’ — I referred to YOU as a dog.”
“They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” sold a million records, reaching №3 on the Billboard chart. Adding to the insanity, its B-side was the track played in reverse. Most of the label, including the Warner Brothers logo, was a mirror image of the A-side, making its title “!aaaH, yawA eM ekaT oT gnimoC er’yehT.”
Samuels’ worry that he would draw criticism was prescient; radio stations across the country banned the record after receiving complaints from doctors and institutions claiming that the song “hurt their image.” After five weeks, the song dropped from the charts.
“It was a hit before it got banned,” Samuels said. “Once it got banned, it was finished. I’ve had people approach me to do versions of the song with obscenities, but I’ve said no, I don’t care how much money is involved.”
Samuels only performed “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” once on stage; believing the audience was laughing at him instead of with him, he then recruited others to play Napoleon XIV.
Samuels, 84, died March 10, 2023.
Frank Mastropolo is the author of the 200 Greatest Rock Songs series and Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.
