Song of the Day 8/9: Brute Force, “The King of Fuh”
Recorded back in 1969, this single seems to presage the coming of a certain someone.
There was a beautiful land called Fuh
And in this land there was a king
And everybody called him the Fuh King
And the Fuh King did what he wanted to do
I said the Fuh King went where he wanted to go
Wo oh mighty, mighty Fuh King …
And the Fuh King thought what he wanted to think
I said the Fuh King said what he wanted to say
Wo oh mighty, mighty Fuh King
All hail the Fuh King
The mighty Fuh King
All hail! All hail! All hail
The mighty Fuh King
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S80fSH0V9c
“Brute Force” was, and still is, a guy named Stephen Friedland whose music, recorded in the late ’60s-early ’70s, tended toward the comic — “Tapeworm of Love” used to get airplay on the Dr. Demento show. “The King of Fuh” was his most notorious record because it essentially never got distributed. Friedland’s record company rejected it, so the Beatles recorded it for Apple Records. But because it couldn’t get any airplay, the 1,000 copies that were printed were barely distributed, making this a sought-after disc for collectors. The song was finally given wide release in 2010 when Apple put out a collection of the label’s non-Beatles talent.
