Let's Not Dance! It's Pac Man Fever!

Posted by: Paul Smith

Ohio based songwriting duo Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia have always resented the 'novelty' tag often attached to their work by the wider musical community. They must, therefore, feel the odd twinge of we-have-kind-of-bought-this-upon-ourselves-ness when considering their back catalogue, which includes Merry Christmas In The NFL, E.T. I Love You, Pog Nation and Do The Donkey Kong. But it is for their 1982 hit Pac Man Fever, taken from the album of the same name, for which they are best remembered. On its initial release, it peaked at number 9 in the US Billboard charts, which, when you consider that it thereby outperformed The Beatles' She Loves You, is not bad going.

The pair had been mucking about with arcade game soundtracks for some time, and, at the insistance of their agent, Arnie Geller, recorded Pac Man Fever as a bit of a laugh. Being dreadful, it was rejected by every single record label in the United States. undettered, and with the tune reworked somewhat, Geller set about releasing it himself, locally in Atlanta. Managing to get the single played by an obscure Georgia disc jockey happened upon a niche market, triggered an incredible ten thousand sales within a week.

Yet more madness was awaiting the pair. The son of a CBS executive wouldn't stop playing the song. CBS contacted Buckner and Garcia, who stated that they were primarily artists and were not interested in recording an entire album of arcade game-themed tracks. Then, when Columbia showed them a large pile of cash, they decided that actually, yes they were, after all, and moreover would complete the job in thirty days. Thus it was that the greatest album ever to feature arcade noises came about.

At the same time as the album was being recorded, civil strife and widespread rioting was raging throughout many of Britain's inner cities. The Specials' brilliant Ghost Town, with its 'Can't go on no more/people getting angry' couplet memorably summed up the mood of the moment. The Jam attacked class priviledge with Eton Rifles ('What chance have you got against a tie and crest?) and even punk/insect fusion rockers Adam and The Ants called, somewhat more bafflingly, for the sweeping away of the established order by an army of antpeople. An examination of the first verse of Pac Man Fever'I've got a callous on my finger, and my shoulder's hurting too.' It is a struggle to hear the smashing of petrol bombs and the overturning of police cars through these lyrics.

In fairness, however, Pac Man Fever was never intended to be anything other than a quirky documentary on Pac Man itself, and to this end it performs very well. Three of the ghosts are named - wrongly - for the first time in music history: Speedy, (who is 'on my tail'), Pokey (who is 'too slow') and Blinky (who, we learn, is 'out of sight'). Remarkably, there are even accurate strategy tips for gameplay within the lyrics: the line 'I'm gonna fake it to the left, and move to the right' pertains to the tactic of quickly moving from left to right when cornered by two ghosts - a manouvre known as 'jabbing' by British players - which would often cause one or both of them to back off, thus opening up an escape route. References to 'getting all the patterns down' and 'the ninth key' - exploitable bugs within earlier versions of the game - also mean that, if nothing else, Buckner and/or Garcia have played an awful lot of Pac Man.

Being in many places really, really bad, the album was never followed up, and the pair decided instead to concentrate on radio jingles, which they continue to do to this day. If you fancy it, and you're at a lonely point in your life, you can catch them on tour now and then, too.

Next week, as we work through the album, we'll be examining Frogger, both as a legendary arcade game and a lamentable album track. No need to bring your dancing shoes.

  About the author

Paul Smith

When not writing stuff for us, Paul has his own blog here. It deals mainly with his war of attrition with the general public, a conflict in which neither side seems to want to back down.

You'd either have to be mad, or just have something better to do, to miss it.

He has Twitter, too, if you fancy it.