Little Birdy

This is a song by Ween, from the album Pure Guava.

The opening song on Ween's most famous album, this one is sung with warped guitar that sounds almost backwards, through something that makes the singer's voice sounds very odd. This is repeated a couple times with different singers. I have allowed people to listen to this song on a Walkman and have been informed that my batteries were dying; not so. That's just how the song sounds!

The first verse is sung by Gene Ween, and the second by Mean Ween (who was on the cover of their album The Pod but is not a regular member of the band). Interspersed with weird little repetitions of "oh little birdy," this song falls in with many other Ween songs in making no frigging sense, for example, take the following verse:

i saw the little birdy sing
he sang with glee and everything
he sang for spring and he sang for me
and everything was so happy

When the bird is accused in the song of trying to get them high, one assumes that the band members already are.

This song is © 1992 by Ween, Elektra Records (Cassette), © 1992 CD Creation Records (CD).

Pure Guava
Next song on this album: Tender Situation

Little Birdy started in June 2002, when Katie Steele (Luke Steele from Sleepy Jackson's little sister) wanted to play guitar instead of keys. She got Simon (from One Horse Town) to play drums orginally, until Scott (from Fourth Floor Collapse) and Matty (from Adora) joined the line up. These days Scott plays bass, Matty plays drums and Simon plays guitar. Katies songwriting talent and astonishing voice can now be used to make some rocking pop songs. Little Birdy are presently doing gigs around Perth, and looking to do their first recording in the near future.

With all the recent debate about internet music piracy, an Australian band and label have decided to fly in the opposite direction.

Perth quartet Little Birdy have made their song “Relapse” available for free downloading from the Triple J website ( www.abc.net.au/triplej).

Triple J picked up a demo recording of the song a few months ago. Now this new version is receiving high rotation airplay on the station. The group announced the free download initiative during a live show at Triple J’s outside broadcast in Fremantle on Friday.

According to the group’s label, Eleven: a music company, the download will be available as a timed out MP3 file. The song will also be part of a limited edition 7” single release that will be in stores on August 18th.

To promote this single release, Little Birdy will do gigs in West Australia, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne before heading overseas for a number of showcase performances in London and New York next month.