The Nightcrawlers: The Little Black Egg

[Editor's Note: Dear Reader, this was the first post I ever wrote on this blog. I didn't really think too hard about it—I just really liked the song and wanted to write something about it. Since then, a good portion of traffic to my website has been related to this tune. If you're interested in "The Little Black Egg," I strenuously urge you to pick up Big Beat Records' excellent Nightcrawlers' retrospective, which contains that song and much more. Also, if you have any memories of the Nightcrawlers from back in the day, feel free to post them in the comments section below.]

My favorite song in the entire world was written by a band of cryptic Floridians called the Nightcrawlers. Somewhere, information exists about the Nightcrawlers. A quick search through the internets reveals that their one and only album (plus bonus tracks) was reissued by Big Beat Records in 2000, but I don't own it.

Consequently, I don’t know anything about the Nightcrawlers, it doesn’t matter, who cares. I don’t want to know anything about them. All I know is that this lovely song was released in 1965 and eventually became a minor hit. My first exposure to it came via the Lenny Kaye-compiled Nuggets collection, which caused an invisible third eye to open in the center of my forehead.

Starting off with a jangly guitar riff, “Little Black Egg” manages to lurch along for three and a half minutes. It’s propelled by a weirdly precise drummer, who sounds like he just learned how to play. Almost as if he hasn’t yet figured out how hard the drums should be hit—sometimes he sneaks out an arm to hit the crash cymbal, but it’s rare. A close listen reveals that the poor guy’s squeaky kick drum pedal is sorely in need of some WD-40. The squeak cuts through the distinctive “sorry but we could only spare one mic for the drums” drum sound. It sounds really dogged, you know? Like he's just making do with what he has, and it ain't easy, so count your blessings.

The singer, on the other hand, sounds like a drawling lobotomy outpatient with nasal congestion to whom someone handed a tambourine before pushing him in front of a microphone and hitting the record button. It just so happens he’s got some very ineffable psychedelic problems that he’s gonna lay on you.

In a blissful, deadpan voice with occasional deadpan harmony, he informs the listener that:

1.) He's found a little black egg with little white specks
2.) People want to look at it, but he doesn’t want them to
3.) The whole situation is really fucking stressing him out

It’s the most perfectly paranoid psych-pop song ever.

Have you ever been hanging out with a friend who’s cataclysmically stoned and trying to impress something important upon you? Let’s say he's trying to describe how going to the DMV is all fucked up. However, he's really high, so he keeps adding all these details about what it’s like to be there, describing some woman who kept giving him funny looks, and she had a blue Bic ballpoint pen, and one sort of lazy eye, and your friend just keeps repeating himself, and keeps droning on at exactly one speed, and don’t seem to necessarily have any emotions connected to anything he's saying, except the DMV you know, it’s fucked up in this one particular way, and that woman there with the pen is . . . and then he trails off . . . until you say something like "yeah" . . . and he starts over again. If you've ever been stuck in a conversation like that, well, you have a pretty good idea of what this song feels like.

Here are some of the actual words:

I don’t care what they say
I’m gonna keep it anyway
I won’t let them stretch their necks
To see my little black egg with the little white specks

I found it in a tree
Just the other day
Now it’s mine all mine
They won’t take away

Here comes Mary here comes Lee
I’ll bet what they want to see
I won’t let them stretch their necks
To see my little black egg with the little white specks

Yeah, you heard the man. “Stretch their necks.” As if Mary and Lee could see the egg, if only they craned their heads a little, but he’s somehow keeping them from doing that. It’s clearly implied that Mary and Lee may want to steal the egg, which is valuable. To three people, at least.

The Nightcrawlers had twenty or so other songs, but nothing that can really touch this. My questions about the song just keep piling up. Do birds actually lay black eggs? Are the white specks, you know, bird shit? What kind of bird would even hatch? Or is it a turtle egg? A dinosaur egg? Does this guy have to be really careful with the egg? Will it start to smell, or does it already? How could he tell the egg was special in the first place?

The only thing I know is that I’m rooting for the crazy bastard. Hang onto the little black egg, and don't let it go. It's yours.