A rock group pays homage to its most frightful character yet. His name is ‘Florida Man’
The classic rock group Blue Öyster Cult has made a career singing of frightful figures.
BÖC has sung of the Grim Reaper, Godzilla and imagined a nightmarish Joan Crawford rising from the grave. (The group released live versions of those songs in 1981 recorded at the former concert venue, the Hollywood Sportatorium, a chilling spot in itself.)
And now, Blue Öyster Cult has turned its eye for the macabre to arguably the most frightful figure of them all: Florida Man.
“Florida Man” serves as a tuneful, and humorous, highlight of the band’s first studio album in almost 20 years, “The Symbol Remains,” which hit retailers Friday.
The song, written by lyricist and novelist John Shirley with the group’s founding member, vocalist-guitarist Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser, introduces listeners to characters like a Miami nurse who snatches a purse and drives in reverse down the highway. Beth, who is high on meth with the neighbors’ cat on her breath, and Lee who drives through a plate of glass and blames Alice’s caterpillar.
“I wanted to write a song about the Florida Man as a folk legend, such as Pecos Pete or Paul Bunyan,” Roeser told the Miami Herald in an email. “I also wanted to present the Florida Man as somewhat sympathetic. I imagined there was a reason for his behavior, and in the Blue Öyster Cult song, the story tells of an ancient Seminole curse dating back to the Conquistadors.”
He also told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune he was in New Port Richey when he came up with the idea for a “Florida Man” song and that “the whole country is on to Florida Man.”
‘(Don’t Fear) The Reaper’
BÖC’s most famous song is the landmark “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” a harmonious number written and sung by Roeser in 1976 when he had a premonition of an early death. (At 72, the vocalist and guitarist is still with the group he started way back in 1967 under the name Soft White Underbelly, so so much for his premonitions.)
“(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” served as the inspiration for Stephen King’s novel “The Stand,” the author said, and the tune has turned up everywhere from the first “Halloween” horror movie in 1978 to a famed “Saturday Night Live” sketch (“More cowbell!”) in 2000.
“Florida Man” boasts some similar harmonies that lets listeners know BÖC hasn’t lost its sound or its knack for pairing hard rock with catchy melodies and quirky subject matters despite featuring a keyboardist and guitarist, Richie Castellano, who, at 40, was not born when songs like “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” and “Godzilla” originally came out in the late 1970s.
‘Florida Man’ lyrics
“Should you settle down in the Sunshine State you should know of its tangled fate/
How the conquistador came to Florida long before it had a name/
The medicine man of the Seminole knelt at the sacred flame/
And he cursed the soul of the conquistador/And his son, and his sons, and the young ones ....
Of the Florida Man (Florida Man, Florida Man, Florida Man)/
Down at the mall, where the boas crawl/Ted makes love to a concrete wall/
(Florida Man!)/
His brother Red said his Uncle Ned found Elvis in a loaf of bread/
(Florida Man!)/
High on meth there’s little Beth the neighbor’s cat is on her breath/
(Florida Man!)/
Dan dreams he’s got red wings of fire he’s waking an’ shaking on a power wire/
(Florida Man, Florida Man, Florida Man)
Slim sees his face in a moonlit wave gets a shovel, digs his own grave/
(Florida Man!)/
Lee hates plate glass, he drives right through it said Alice’s caterpillar made him do it/
(Florida Man!)/
A Miami nurse snatches a purse drives down the freeway in reverse/
(Florida Man!)
Rip asks the cops to test his drugs after they find him hiding under a rug/
(Florida Man, Florida Man, Florida Man)/
Don’t you laugh, it could be you/The Seminole curse always comes true/
You can jeer but you don’t understand/That any fragile soul/
Can be the Florida Man.”
This story was originally published October 9, 2020 at 11:17 AM.
