Growing up with MTV, I was a witness to many of the now-classic songs becoming what they are today - a part of music history. Among the bands that orbited around the heavy-rock cluster in the eighties and the beginning of the nineties were Tesla, an American band from Sacramento. In 1990 they had a huge hit on the rock charts and a heavy airplay on TV with the video for the song “Signs,” from their live album “Five Man Acoustical Jam.” At the time I was completely unaware that it wasn’t their composition, but I also didn’t have a clue who Five Man Electrical Band were. Although the band had many hits in Canada, including the top 10 entries "Half Past Midnight" (1967) (as The Staccatos), "Absolutely Right" (1971) and "I'm a Stranger Here" (1972,) and of course, “Signs” from 1971.
The song was written by Les Emmerson, the group’s guitarist and lead vocalist. The band recorded it for their second album, “Good-byes and Butterflies,” in 1970. "Signs" was originally released the same year as the B-side to the relatively unsuccessful single "Hello Melinda Goodbye," which only reached the 56th place on the Canadian charts. Re-released in 1971 as the A-side, "Signs" reached No. 4 in Canada and No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 24 song for 1971 and It became a gold record.
Tesla’s cover had some minor changes to the lyrics: the line "blockin' out the scenery" was changed to "fuckin' up the scenery," and "made up my own little sign" was changed to "made up my own fuckin' sign". They recorded a studio version of the song in 2007 that used the original lyrics but was far from the success of their 1990 live version.
Fatboy Slim sampled the opening line of the song, "And the sign said long-haired freaky people need not apply" and used it for his song "Don't Let The Man Get You Down", from his Palookaville album, a song which was also a big international hit.
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