“Mumble And Bumble”
by The Seeds
1968 song
"Mumble And Bumble" is a short and peppy psychedelic garage rock song by The Seeds from their fake live 1968 album Raw & Alive. It’s pleasant but doesn’t completely shy away from the unsettling wickedness that seemed to creep into everything the band did in this era. Musically it’s similar to "Rollin' Machine" with its one-two jerkiness, but the obscure subject matter and a sense of unease drag it down to, depending on your disposition, more worrying or more awesome subterranean levels.
The track was first recorded in the studio on February 20, 1968, in front of a small group of fans. This was an attempt to emulate a live show for the “live” album, and "Mumble And Bumble" was the first song the band played that night for their appreciative fans.
It, along with most of the songs recorded that day, was rejected however. In April the band tried again to capture enough recordings for the album and on April 9 they got what they wanted out of "Mumble And Bumble" over nine takes; again it was the first song attempted on this long day. Screaming fan sounds were added and it became one of the tracks on the infamous Raw & Alive album.
In 2014, both the original version and the final version without crowd noises were added to the expanded CD version of Raw & Alive.
