2000 Great Songs #1478: The Cry Of Eugene

It's time for our second visit to The Nice's 1968 debut The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack. And while at that early date the band were already starting to generate prog bombast alongside straight if overly fussy classical music, tendencies which Keith Emerson would massively expand on when he split off to form ELP, the album also had some trippy psychedelia more in line with the sort of acid-drenched strangeness offered up by bands like Pink Floyd and the Pretty Things. 

That's most apparent on album-closer "The Cry of Eugene," which is chock full of phased guitars and panned vocals and all manner of headphone-friendly remnants of the psychedelic age. It doesn't hurt that Emerson is relatively restrained here, some bubbly organ riffs but mostly staying out of the way. Maybe not a great lost classic, but the sort of thing that would stand out on any Nuggets-styled psych compilation. (And no, I don't know if there's any relationship between this track and Pink Floyd's "Careful With That Axe, Eugene," released as a b-side later that year; maybe there were just a lot of Eugenes in the UK acid scene.)

Bassist Lee Jackson formed the jammy rock/prog outfit Jackson Heights after The Nice imploded, and recycled "Euguene" for his new band's 1970 debut King Progress. That version's also worth a listen, retaining some of the psychedelic touches of the original but stretched into more of a pastoral jam piece.

Original Nice version:

Jackson Heights remake:

Covered by Ex Norwegian:

Ukulele cover? Sure, why not?

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