Uncontrollable Urge

One of the earliest Devo songs, "Uncontrollable Urge" was written by their keyboard player Mark Mothersbaugh, who sings lead on the track. Many Devo songs have subversive deeper meanings; "Whip It," for instance, is a sly look at American politics from the perspective of the rest of the world. "Uncontrollable Urge," though, is really just about a guy struggling to keep his unbridled enthusiasm under control. "It was just about energy," Mothersbaugh told Vulture. "It was just about being young and excitable."

The song is influenced by The Beatles, falling somewhere between homage and parody. It has the same chord progression as "I Want To Hold Your Hand," and the "Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeah!" part is a Devo-fied version of the "yeah yeah yeah"s in "She Loves You." Apparently, John Lennon took notice. According to Mark Mothersbaugh, Lennon saw Devo perform at the New York City hotspot Max's Kansas City in 1977, before they released the song. They played "Uncontrollable Urge" that night, and after the show the band was waiting in their Econoline van when Lennon and Ian Hunter came out of the club stupid drunk. "John Lennon looked over and he saw me," Mothersbaugh said. "He came over, stuck his head in the window and went, 'yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!' He heard his chords at the beginning of this song, and I turned his 'yeah yeah yeah' into 'yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!' I was the right age to be impressed by The Beatles."

"Uncontrollable Urge" is the first song on the first Devo album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, released in 1978. The band was a multimedia project that early on focused on films, figuring they could sell them on Laser Disc at some point. They didn't even want a record deal until they realized laser disc wasn't going to work, so they signed with Warners and issued the album. They didn't give up on film, though, and a lot of what they shot was built around their songs - music videos, essentially. When MTV went on the air in 1981, they put "Whip It" in hot rotation and it became one of their most popular videos.