Brownsville Station
This week we are going to be listening to what my youngest daughter says is the “song that made me deadly afraid of aliens”, she had only heard it 30 plus times before she was 8 years old (she now drives her own 1971 Mustang spaceship.) Do you remember the days when as teenagers you would get a case of the munchies really bad at 2 in the morning and decide to stop off at the all night dinner to get some food? Maybe a early pancake breakfast with some eggs? Yeah you’re right! Most of us wanted the one and only true champion for the munchies, HAMBURGER and FRIES.
What would you do if “this little bitty green hand holding a ketchup bottle came into view” after you nudged the guy sitting next to you asking for the ketchup bottle? Then you looked over at his plate and seeing all these colored looking sticks on his plate would you ask “What you eaten there, boy…crayons?”
And they said, “Why no, they’re Martian cigarettes. Try one!” Would you try one?
This is the story behind the song Martian Boogie: The song came out as a single back in 1977 from the rock band, that was most famous for the hit song “Smoking in the Boys Room”, Brownsville Station. Martian Boogie is from the band’s seven record titled Brownsville Station. This is a rocking song that starts off with some of that old creepy sound effects that you used to hear while watching some of those old science fiction movies from the 60’s. After that we get a little rocking taste of whats to come up later, after we hear the story of what could happen when you get hungry late at night. Then as the story starts to be told we hear a single guitar strumming along with a drum symbol keeping the beat moving. I just love the sound effects we get when the dude realized the guy sitting next to him was a martian. From here you might just want to sit down and listen to the rest of the song. Enjoy and remember the next time your out in the early morning hours with the munchies would you stop at a place called “Eats” sit and gulp?
Forgotten Rock Classics 
My brother Steve Hartl was at one of their concerts. He was 6’3” and came into concert hiding a bottle of ketchup. He was by the stage and just when they spoke those words in the song about passing the ketchup, Steve lifted that bottle up and surprised the band members. After that he became friends with them. Cool experience!
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What a great story. Thanks for sharing with us. For him to think about bringing ketchup is unreal
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Martian Boogie is a total rip off of King Biscuit Boy’s 1972 song Biscuit’s Boogie. Question is where did King Biscuit Boy borrow it from.
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Murf you are 100% correct on that. I have no idea where Biscuit Boy got it from though
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This song was a HUGE hit in my home town. It made the top 40 for the year when they did the year end countdown for 1977. It is on my playlist and people give me the strangest looks when it comes on. 🙂
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It really has surprised me over the years how people respond to it. Living out west not many people had heard it before. Don’t know if I mentioned in post but I looked for the album for years and found a warped copy at a flea market for 25 cents. Went home and Martian Boogie played perfectly
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Loved the song but Wild Wally’s ingenious Cubist video was out of this world. I couldn’t help but think of the people who like to photograph Elf on a Shelf in strange places and thought the Elf would make a great stand-in for the little green man.
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We agree with you that Wild Wally did a great job.
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Coooooool!👽
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As a teenager in my hometown, which is a small town in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska, we didn’t have the luxury of being able to go somewhere to eat in the middle of the night if we got the munchies. It was either raid the cupboards and fridge, or starve. If i happened to see a Martian anywhere, I would have freaked out. I have heard of the song Smoking in the Boys Room, but not Martian Boogie. Thanks for sharing. ~cs57.11
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Glad you liked the song. A little side story about the album. It took me over 10 years to find it. I found Smoking in the boys room records everywhere I went. A lot of the people I talked to had never heard of the record. I even had one record shop owner look in his magic book of records and couldn’t find it. Then one day at a flea market this guy had a bin full of records and this was in there for the major cost of twenty five cents.
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That was awesome!
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Glad you enjoyed. This is one of our most favorite songs.
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