Earache My Eye
Encyclopedia
"Earache My Eye" is a comedy routine and song by Cheech and Chong
Cheech and Chong
Cheech & Chong are a comedy duo consisting of Richard "Cheech" Marin and Tommy Chong, who found a wide audience in the 1970s and 1980s for their films and stand-up routines, which were based on the hippie and free love era, and especially drug culture movements, most notably their love for...

 which features Alice Bowie (one of Cheech Marin
Cheech Marin
Richard Anthony "Cheech" Marin is an American comedian, actor and writer who gained recognition as part of the comedy act Cheech & Chong during the 1970s and early 1980s, and as Don Johnson's partner, Insp. Joe Dominguez on Nash Bridges...

's characters).

History

It first appeared on Cheech & Chong's Wedding Album
Cheech & Chong's Wedding Album
Cheech & Chong's Wedding Album is a 1974 comedy album recorded by Cheech & Chong.The original vinyl LP contained unique artwork that made the album look like an actual wedding album. In the sleeve's spread, you can find photos in which the duo are dressed up like conjoined twins, and are married to...

(1974
1974 in music
-January–April:*January 3 – Bob Dylan and The Band kick off their 40-date concert tour at Chicago Stadium. It's Dylan's first time on the road since 1966.*January 17...

) and later on the greatest hits collections Cheech & Chong's Greatest Hit
Cheech & Chong's Greatest Hit
Cheech & Chong's Greatest Hit is a comedy album by Cheech & Chong. The album is a "greatest hits" compilation, featuring some of their best known comedy bits. Much to some fans disliking, some tracks were edited for this release. Oddly, the 1:34 track "Dave" is broken into two separate tracks,...

(1981
1981 in music
See also:* Timeline of musical eventsThis is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1981.-January–April:*January 10 – A revival of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance opens at Broadway's Uris Theatre, starring Linda Ronstadt and Rex Smith.*January 24 –...

), and Where There's Smoke There's Cheech & Chong
Where There's Smoke There's Cheech & Chong
Where There's Smoke There's... Cheech & Chong features over 2½ hours of their best recordings & comedy routines, including unreleased material on 2 CDs...

, a double-CD anthology from 2002
2002 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 2002.-Events:*February 3 – U2 perform during the halftime show for Super Bowl XXXVI...

.

Cheech And Chong also lip sync
Lip sync
Lip sync, lip-sync, lip-synch is a technical term for matching lip movements with sung or spoken vocals...

 to the recording (with Chong behind the drum kit) in their first movie Up in Smoke
Up in Smoke
Up in Smoke, directed by Lou Adler, is Cheech and Chong's first feature-length film, released in 1978 by Paramount Pictures. It stars Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, Edie Adams, Strother Martin, and Stacy Keach....

(1978). This piece is considered to be one of the greatest novelty audio pieces of all time, and has been featured repeatedly on the Doctor Demento radio show. According to Tommy Chong's autobiography, the famous guitar riff
RIFF
The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....

 is played by Gaye Delorme
Gaye Delorme
Gaye Delorme was a Canadian songwriter, composer and guitar player. Born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, he lived primarily in western Canada until his death of a possible heart attack...

, who also composed the music for the song. Additionally, Chong states that drums on the song are played by famed international percussionist Airto Moreira
Airto Moreira
Airto Moreira is a Brazilian jazz drummer and percussionist. Airto is married to jazz singer Flora Purim, and their daughter Diana Moreira is also a singer. He currently resides in Los Angeles.-Biography:...

.

The song was also released as a single in 1974, and reached #9 on the Billboard charts and #4 in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. In Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, it topped the charts at the powerful and influential Top 40 radio
Contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts...

 station WLS (AM)
WLS (AM)
WLS is a Chicago clear-channel AM station on 890 kHz. It uses C-QUAM AM stereo and transmits with 50,000 watts from transmitter and towers on the south edge of Tinley Park, Illinois....

, holding the #1 position for one week in September 1974, in the middle of an eleven week run on the station's top 40 airplay charts. The song also reached the top spot for one week on the West Coast's biggest Top 40 radio
Contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts...

 station, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

' KHJ-AM. The B-side, "Turn That Thing Down" features the remainder of the musical track, from the point of Marin's monologue
Monologue
In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...

 about his wealth, without the actual dialogue, complete to its conclusion. It is possible to assemble the full-length version of the song by editing the two sections together. The version featured on Cheech & Chong's Greatest Hit
Cheech & Chong's Greatest Hit
Cheech & Chong's Greatest Hit is a comedy album by Cheech & Chong. The album is a "greatest hits" compilation, featuring some of their best known comedy bits. Much to some fans disliking, some tracks were edited for this release. Oddly, the 1:34 track "Dave" is broken into two separate tracks,...

fades out before reaching the skit as it appears on the single and the Wedding Album LP.

Several radio stations refused to play the song.

Content

"Earache My Eye" consists of a song, followed by a comedy skit. In the opening skit, Tommy Chong
Tommy Chong
Tommy Chong is a Canadian-American comedian, actor, writer, director, activist, and musician who is well known for his stereotypical portrayals of hippie-era stoners...

 plays a rebellious teen with an attitude disorder. At the beginning of the piece he's snoring. We hear an alarm clock, and then the boy wakes up noisily. He starts up a glam rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...

 record, with Cheech Marin singing the lyrics as glam rock star character Alice Bowie, who, as the name implies, is supposed to be a combination of Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...

 and Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

 (at one point in his tune, "Alice Bowie" even mentions having orange hair, like the real David Bowie sported at that time). The teen's father (also played by Cheech), then barges into the room, yells "I said turn that thing down and get ready for school!", and scratches the record, which annoys his son to no end. The son then complains about an earache, prompting Dad to exclaim, "Earache my eye, how would you like a butt-ache?" The boy then gets even snottier, provoking his father to swat him with a belt. When he ridicules the spanking as painless, Dad then whips him into sniveling, outward compliance, which lasts until his father leaves the room, and the boy puts the record back on.

Influence

The musical portion of "Earache My Eye", which was written originally by Canadian artist Gaye Delorme
Gaye Delorme
Gaye Delorme was a Canadian songwriter, composer and guitar player. Born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, he lived primarily in western Canada until his death of a possible heart attack...

, a resident of Edmonton, AB, has been covered by many bands, ranging in styles from heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 to hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

. The comedy-metal group Scatterbrain
Scatterbrain
Scatterbrain was an eclectic thrash metal band formed in 1989 when Long Island, New York hardcore group Ludichrist featuring Tommy Christ and Glen Cummings regrouped and changed their name....

 covered the song on their album Here Comes Trouble
Here Comes Trouble (Scatterbrain album)
Here Comes Trouble is the first album by thrash metal band Scatterbrain. It contains a cover version of Cheech and Chong's "Earache My Eye"....

. Korn
Korn
Korn is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, formed in 1993. The current band line up includes four members: Jonathan Davis, James "Munky" Shaffer, Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, and Ray Luzier. The band was formed as an expansion of L.A.P.D.The band released their first demo album,...

 released the song as a hidden track at the end of "My Gift to You" from their 1998 album Follow the Leader
Follow the Leader (Korn album)
Follow the Leader is the third studio album by American nu metal band Korn. The album was released on August 18, 1998, through Immortal/Epic. This was their first album not produced by Ross Robinson...

, with Cheech Marin
Cheech Marin
Richard Anthony "Cheech" Marin is an American comedian, actor and writer who gained recognition as part of the comedy act Cheech & Chong during the 1970s and early 1980s, and as Don Johnson's partner, Insp. Joe Dominguez on Nash Bridges...

 appearing as a guest vocalist. The recording was reissued on the compilations Live and Rare and Playlist: The Very Best of Korn, separated from "My Gift to You".

Alternative rockers Rollins Band
Rollins Band
Rollins Band was an American rock band led by singer and songwriter Henry Rollins.They are best known for the songs "Low Self Opinion" and "Liar", which both earned heavy airplay on MTV in the early 1990s...

 and Soundgarden
Soundgarden
Soundgarden is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington in 1984 by singer Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto...

 both covered the song, and the hip hop group 2 Live Crew
2 Live Crew
2 Live Crew was a hip hop group from Miami, Florida. They caused considerable controversy with the sexual themes in their work, particularly on their 1989 album As Nasty As They Wanna Be.- Early career :...

 used a sample from the song on their 1989 album As Nasty As They Wanna Be
As Nasty As They Wanna Be
As Nasty As They Wanna Be is the third album by Miami rap group 2 Live Crew. It was released in 1989, and became their largest seller, going 2x Platinum. In 1990, United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida ruled that the album was legally obscene; this ruling was later...

. The Canadian power trio Rush
Rush (band)
Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...

 have used the song's signature riff live, to end "The Big Money", (whose album version ends with a fade) on the live album A Show of Hands
A Show of Hands
A Show of Hands is a live album by Canadian rock band Rush, released in 1989. The band released a video of the same name, originally on VHS and laserdisc in 1989...

. It was also used to end Tom Sawyer on the band's Snakes & Arrows World Tour and can be heard on the subsequent live album. Toronto's instro-sludge kings Electric Magma have also used the song's main riff in the song titled "The Chong Song" which appears on the 2007 release Coconut Bangers Ball.

Gov't Mule
Gov't Mule
Gov't Mule is a Southern rock jam band formed in 1994 as an Allman Brothers Band side project by Warren Haynes and Allen Woody.The band released their debut album Gov't Mule in 1995...

 covered the song at the Vic Theatre in Chicago, Illinois on April 15, 2000 with Brodie Hutchinson, soundman, performing the spoken word portion and this is available as a Classic Muletracks.

The Kottonmouth Kings
Kottonmouth Kings
Kottonmouth Kings is an American rap rock group from Placentia, Orange County, California. Kottonmouth Kings officially formed in 1994, and describe themselves as "psychedelic hip-hop punk rock"...

 also sampled this classic on the song "Loadies" from their album Cloud Nine.

Raging Slab
Raging Slab
- History :The group formed in 1983 when Greg Strzempka and Elyse Steinman, both guitarists, met in New York City. The two had a shared interest in the heavy rock sounds of 1970's style "boogie" rock and such contemporary punk rock groups as the Ramones and Black Flag...

 also covered the song on their 1991 release, Slabbage/True Death.

Moe.
Moe.
moe. is an American jam band, formed at the University at Buffalo in 1989. The band members are: Rob Derhak , Al Schnier , Chuck Garvey , Vinnie Amico , and Jim Loughlin ....

's road crew performed the song at the Washington Street Armory in Albany, New York on December 4, 2010.
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