999,924: Cub Koda - Random Drug Testing

Following the breakup of ‘70s hard rockers Brownsville Station (you know, the original version of “Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room”), frontman Cub Koda returned to his first love, American roots music (country, blues, early rock ‘n’ roll and R&B, etc.), both as a solo performer and music journalist. In keeping with the high energy he brought to Brownsville, Koda’s tastes ran especially toward the wild, the wacky, and the intense. His attempts to capture those qualities in his own material often focused on the wacky, based on his conviction that roots music should sound fun and lively, rather than like museum pieces from bygone days.

If the results often sounded like jokey novelties, they were occasionally transcendent ones, like 1995’s cult college-radio hit “Random Drug Testing.” It’s constructed like a simple field holler or work song from the deepest roots of African-American music, and the production is intentionally lo-fi, emulating the sound of a vintage field recording. There are no instruments besides makeshift percussion, and everything sounds very informal, with everyone in the studio joining in on the main repeated line in the song’s simple call-and-response pattern. And what is the repeated line? Well, it’s the kind of less physically abusive oppression that workers in 1995 would have to complain about – namely, the boss man says you gotta pee in the cup. There follows a parade of other authority figures telling you to pee in the cup, and much lamentation (and whooping) from Cub and his crew. Mostly, though, it’s a group of grown men chanting “pee in the cup” over and over again for two solid minutes. Oddly, a grand total of three songwriters are credited on this track.

If the whole enterprise is silly, what’s really jarring to our ears is hearing this simple style of music addressing topics from our complex high-tech modern world. In our current rock age, where anti-commercial concerns about “art” can often lead to willfully inaccessible lyrics, or studio-crafted soundscapes not centered around melody, it’s a reminder that the entire concept of popular music was originally rooted in the simple joy of singing along to something that’s easy to remember. No, really! Now go pee in the cup.