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"Mushroom" is a song by the German krautrock band Can, from their 1971 album Tago Mago. It's the shortest song on the album, lasting for 4 minutes and 8 seconds. A video was made for the track which has been shown on MTV.

Content

The song has a hypnotic and repetitive structure, where vocalist Damo Suzuki, up-close to his microphone, chants "When I saw mushroom head / I was born, I was dead" and "When I saw skies are red / I was born, I was dead" during the verses. For the chorus, he yells "I'm gonna give my despair".

Rob Young, Can's biographer, described Damo's lyricism on the "Mushroom" as his "seldom cut to the existential", referencing red skies, the mushroom shape of the title, "overtones of nuclear unease". This idea is reinforced by the sound of a bomb explosion that abruptly ends the song. According to Michael Karoli, the explosion was created using firecrackers and "slowing them down to around one-sixteenth their normal speed".

It has also been suggested that the lyrics refer to psilocybin mushrooms, which can give users psychedelic visions of rebirth.

Personnel

• Damo Suzuki – vocals
• Holger Czukay – bass
• Michael Karoli – guitar
• Jaki Liebezeit – drums, double bass
• Irmin Schmidt – Farfisa organ, electric piano, synthesizer

Cover versions

On Can vocalist Damo Suzuki's 1998 solo album V.E.R.N.I.S.S.A.G.E, a new version of this song is performed along with "Halleluhwah", another song originally from Tago Mago. His band at the time featured Can's Jaki Liebezeit on drums.

The Serbian and former Yugoslav space rock band Igra Staklenih Perli covered the song on their eponymous debut album in 1979.

The song was covered by the band The Jesus and Mary Chain. A version recorded live in Nuremberg in 1986 was first released on the double-7"-single version of "April Skies." It was later re-issued on the CD version of Barbed Wire Kisses, and then on the 2011 expanded version of Darklands.

The Flaming Lips' song "Take Meta Mars" from In a Priest Driven Ambulance is closely modeled on "Mushroom."

The Swedish band Komeda covered the song in their 1998 single "It's Alright, Baby."

References

1. raggedy. "Can - Mushroom". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-19. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
2. Rob Young; Irmin Schmidt (2018). All Gates Open: The Story of Can. London: Faber & Faber. p. 138. ISBN 978-0-571-31151-4.
3. Rob Young; Irmin Schmidt (2018). All Gates Open: The Story of Can. London: Faber & Faber. p. 139. ISBN 978-0-571-31151-4.
4. V0ight. "Can - Mushroom Lyrics - Genius Lyrics". Genius. Genius Media Group Inc. Retrieved 10 February 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

• 1971 songs
• Psychedelic songs
• Can (band) songs