@Petraeko Amen. This sounds like it's directly off Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. That album was praised as "revolutionary" and "new" in 2000, and this song was released more than 20 years before YHF. Just another reason why Big Star has been snubbed time and time again.
I am a huge Jeff Buckley fan and he was known to close his shows jamming on Kangaroo...which is why I cam here to find the original. What an awesome song! I think Jeff did them justice in his cover of kangaroo.
@AdamRobertPalmer their cover really sucks, not gonna lie. i like how this song sounds really similar to stuff shoegaze bands were doing 20 years after
maybe, you maight be right... the most wonderful song... (one of them 3...-)) but:_ my very most liked version is: this mortail coil...s version! thanks for the lyrics... but in the whole: it reaches my heart!!!! the right speed, the right voice,the right time, ...i was looking for this song ....over 30 years of jearning.. i found it now... i can still deeply cry... drop some tears... whatever - it is so much part of my live....
Didnt know Alex Chilton had passed, reading up apparently he had no health insurance, Oh how unfairly are True Artists treated by their culture nowadays, maybe always? Meanwhile Lil Wayne is selling millions, Fuck. RIP Mr Chilton, thank you for this song, it saved my life.
To me it doesn't make any sense to compare Big Star to the Beatles, cos Big Star are SO MUCH BETTER. The Beatles mostly suck, and are dicks.. esp. McCartney. Big Star=über cool.
@progcunt I agree. Even though I do respect The Beatles for being crafty tunesmiths and populizers of many musical underground innovations they´re music for the most part does nothing for me. It just doesn´t seem to have the emotional rush and soul that Big Star delivers in their music. Of course it´s ridiculous to compare bands, but yes, Big Star owns The Beatles hard.
@mjrjk5 how dear you tell me something I like is wrong? There´s no such thing as being right and wrong when it comes to tastes you douchebag. Bless all you Beatles fascists out there and your limited taste in music. I think it´s time to broaden your musical horizons buddy. I pretty much stopped listening to The Beatles when I was like 14 and have since then moved to ahem, one could say more challenging music. I like The Beatles and all but it´s the ultimate cookie cutter music there is.
I wonder if at some point during the recording of this song, he just looked over, saw a cowbell and said "Fuck it. I'm gonna put some cowbell in this song." Because it comes outta nowhere, but it so damn predominate.
20Boomer, you don´t seem to know much about music do you? Anyway absolutely gorgeous song. R.I.P Alex, perhaps my biggest musical hero ever. I´ll miss you very much.
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
Mugwamp, if you are under 40 yrs of age, you couldn't possibly understand the all-pervasive influence of the Beatles. Big Star's songs reek with Sergeant Pepper much like Brahms, Shubert, and the rest, all sounded like Beethoven, without the stormy soul of the Man. Disco killed the dated sound of Chilton and Big Star and many other bands who couldn't adapt, thus dooming Big * to exalted "cult status" like Nick Drake, Dixie Dregs, et. al.
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
I was a teenager in the early 70's and I tried to remember why I never warmed up to Big Star. Alex Chilton lucked it out with the Box Tops but BT was just a clone of the Beatles who, like the planet Jupiter, still warped all those around them with thier gravity, despite breaking up in 1970. I didn't miss a thing.
That's OK 20boomer, we'll forgive you. Try to give the catalog another listen and hopefully you'll figure out where a lot of the later great pop music came from.
This is my favorite song of all time I think and didn't know until not too long ago that he wrote it.I had hear This Mortal Coil do it and it id fucking brilliant and I love
Mister Chilton musically as few others..I feel so sad!! I didn't even know of him till last year and thank you ..for turning me onto him..I can't believe I never knew of him ..I have much to make up for.
I saw Alex Chilton in concert twice. The first was a solo performance at The Paradise in Boston in 2001. Four years later, I saw him with The Box Tops when he opened for Eric Burdon at a free concert on Boston's Esplanade. At the first concert, I asked him to play Kangaroo and he gave me a stern look. I understand he wasn't overly impressed with a lot of the songs Big Star put out and I guess Kangaroo was one of them. Well, it sure made an impression on Jeff Buckley and lot of others. R.I.P.
@aargoldtakesflight I saw something about his ambivalence towards Big Star -- something about being an experiment that didn't really work out -- but I think while he maybe expressed that opinion at one time, he must have either changed his mind or the opinion was overstated or he wouldn't have joined forces with The Posies to continue performing with Big Star right up until his untimely passing. It may be he didn't want to do a Big Star tune when he was performing with The Boxtops.
Just found out. Think I'm going to spend the night listening to Mr Chilton in all his various guises. All the good ones are going - Ron Asheton, VIc Chesnutt and now Alex Chilton. RIP .
"Minimalism"is spread all over this song.The music is so profoundly and beautifully simple,the words go straight to the heart without beating about the bush.
this song is 75 years ahead of it's time, shit the damn thing was covered by devoto, that must give it star status, but sadly no. unfortunately it's only the spaniards who clock onto the good stuff, and i loath most of them.
Yeah I first heard this on the original PVC LP of "Third" in 1978. Same year "Radio City" and "#1 Record" were reissued as double LP in the U.K. That's kinda when the Big Star myth began, people discovering this music five years after it had been done. "Third" remains what I think is Chilton's finest moment. There's a lotta "power-pop" but very few records quite like "Third." Nothing in my lexicon to match "Kanga Roo," "O, Dana," or "Thank You Friends." "Third" producer Jim Dickinson RIP.
please i would like to make a contact with somebody OLD enough to tell me more about Big Star and Chilton becouse i don't know people who are real fans and, if i talking about me - i think that i becoming one myself.... That old chap have a interesting and somehow familiar aura, so please anybody? The one who ask have a right to be replied...
Anyone here heard the jeff buckley cover of this its almost 15 mins long. i was aware of this version first so please no hate just passing on information
They used to end most of their sets with this song and as you mentioned often drew it out to such lengths that their record company told them to cut it shorter...
I have been seeking a Jeff Buckley version of this song but can't find it here.
@latenightcheeseraids there is the jeff buckley studio version on the Grace 'Legacy Edition double CD' that came out a few years back.....its on disc 2.
@vjoshbv Unfortunately I don't have access to it on CD which is why I find Youtube a handy source. I can (usually) find a song that had been referenced by someone else and listen and compare it for myself. (Johnny Cash's covers, for example.)
Jeff Buckley's version of this song (one of his most covered I believe) is sadly not available on Youtube but I can listen to the original inspiration and imagine for myself his sublime rendering of this song, which has become a favorite of mine now. Cheers
@latenightcheeseraids You say that you havent found the Jeff Buckley version on youtube. There is a live video version on here, search for 'Jeff Buckley - Kangaroo', it is posted by account nwa1973.
@vjoshbv Cheers for pointing me in that direction. I haven't searched for it for several months and it has been posted since then but thanks for the heads-up.
@vjoshbv Cheers for pointing me in that direction. I haven't searched for it for several months and it has been posted since then but thanks for the heads-up.
It will be worth it! This box set is a fan's dream come true! A whole unreleased live set from '73 that is supposed to be the BEST sounding live recording by Big Star ever. Tons of unreleased tracks. 100 page book. I can't wait to get my hands on this thing!
I am an original fan, having bought Radio City and No. 1 Record back in '74 when they were out originally on vinyl, based on record reviews (they didn't get any airplay). This band means a lot to me.
The third album (it wasn't titled at the time) was being bootlegged on Reel-to-reel tape; can't remember exactly what year I bought it, maybe '76 or '77? I know it was before the vinyl LP came out, which was '78. It was quite a shock after the first two albums. I wore out my first copy of Radio City. Had to buy another one!
Big Star is IT. I've seen the reformed band in three different cites; Los Angeles (where I live), New York (where I used to live), and their most recent US gig in Oct. 2007 at the Fillmore in San Francisco.
It adds an extra dimension if one takes to heart the mythology...though probably true... that Chilton laid down the vox and acoustic on one track alone in the studio and threw it at the producer saying "see what you can do with that" as a jaded challenge. Said producer and the others certainly came through.
It's the sound of having created two brilliant preceding albums in the seventies that lost airplay to the likes of Foghat and Foreigner. Sour grapes? How would Nirvana sound if Seven Mary Three and Collective Soul had dominated the airwaves while they had gone unnoticed in the nineties.
Well fortunately (or not?) I've not heard any of those bands you mention (except Nirvana of course). But what does that have to do with how he plays the song? haha, that's just so out there I don't know what to say. I guess it'll grow on me though (heard the TMC version first).
I think what he's saying is that big star's first two albums were perfectly crafted pop masterpieces, and they still didn't get any airplay/sell any records, so by this point alex chilton just said fuck it. Basically this is the sound of him falling apart.
I've always thought of this line as comparing love at first sight (or instant infatuation) to the way a child looks at an exotic creature the first time he or she sees it.
"A common legend about the kangaroo's English name is that it came from the Aboriginal words for "I don't understand you." According to this legend, Captain James Cook and naturalist Sir Joseph Banks were exploring Australia when they happened upon the animal. They asked a nearby local what the creatures were called. The local responded "Kangaroo", meaning "I don't understand you", which Cook took to be the name of the creature."
@ralphabetsoup Unfortunately no, apparently the local responded with the name of the particular kind of kangaroo it was - "kangaroo" - so they all got called kangaroo, despite there being zillions of different names for different kinds of kangaroo/wallaby type animals, plus zillions of different dialects that all had different names. Well, that's the story I heard.
@november191968 Big Star’s third album, Third/ Sister Lovers, was a chaotic, nervous meltdown of a record. Yet its weirdness was what made it compelling, as best evidenced on Kangaroo. A tale of lustful voyeurism at a party, it managed to convey teenage longing with a line as stark raving bonkers as: “Ooh I want you, like a kangaroo”. Instruments echo and clang. Distant voices wail. Then the entire song collapses in a heap, drawing to an end what may be the oddest sex song ever recorded. TJ
Comment removed
Yogurt0107 1 week ago
sounds like the end of the world
analchildmolester 1 week ago in playlist Alex Chilton / Big Star
sounds like bittersweet melodies from Feists new album (i know i know... Big Star were puttin out records when Feist was a baby)
drugrocker 3 months ago
@Petraeko Amen. This sounds like it's directly off Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. That album was praised as "revolutionary" and "new" in 2000, and this song was released more than 20 years before YHF. Just another reason why Big Star has been snubbed time and time again.
Thizzpwnt 4 months ago 2
Every time anyone tries 'perfecting' a recording they should remember songs such as this one exists. just beautiful
MrSlimjimk 4 months ago
WOW!!!!
8ightbogs 5 months ago
This is the song that saved rock and roll.
Indubitably.
kinobuster 5 months ago in playlist kinobuster's Favorited Videos
fantastic album
The songs reminds me of The Beatles - Long Long Long and the album of Lou Reed's Berlin album
ColdOasisU2 5 months ago
This going into "Thank You Friends" is the aural equivalent of page 305 of American Psycho. Yes, go look it up yourself. I dare you.
narozzz 8 months ago
this is just wonderful. also the cover by this mortal coil is great
brajtnerinjo 9 months ago
This song is the perfect soundtrack to a bad mood
MrSlimjimk 10 months ago
fantastic guitar - all those who want everything neatly in tune - go back to your music classes at school and listen to grandads music
cinedores 10 months ago
The original is still the best. Not a diss to Jeff Buckley who was still a brilliantly gifted songwriter.
i8paste 10 months ago 4
Somebody should make some story or documentary movie about Chilto and band. It would be really great, he deserved something like that. At least.....
DyllamDop 10 months ago 4
........ Dear Alex..... Magnificent.....
DyllamDop 10 months ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Guy needs Autotune. Also guitar lessons.
eolon 11 months ago
woh!! nuff said.
23angelful 1 year ago
YEAH MORE COWBELL!!!!1
DZMAN41 1 year ago 2
Yes, where has this song been my whole life :-)
antheajk 1 year ago 2
I'm doing a cool jerk now
chipuraable 1 year ago 7
alwasys great to hear it.....
DyllamDop 1 year ago
I'm 41 Only just discovered Big Star. Loved this song when This Mortal Coil did it. Never knew about Big Star.
What a band !
adrianblewitt1969 1 year ago 5
@adrianblewitt1969 This Mortal Coil also turned me on to Roy Harper with their version of Another Day.
allnightpancakes 1 year ago
I am a huge Jeff Buckley fan and he was known to close his shows jamming on Kangaroo...which is why I cam here to find the original. What an awesome song! I think Jeff did them justice in his cover of kangaroo.
s1ygirl 1 year ago 31
@s1ygirl them? This was all Alex Chilton.
Scumbagization 1 year ago
@s1ygirl Yes, Buckley's cover is awesome. He was incredible.
MitchGettman 8 months ago
ditto youdick22 wow, what the hell took me so long to get here?
dianesmusic1 1 year ago
Just Awesome!!!
cinos223 1 year ago
This Mortal Coil does this song justice, i still cant decide which is better though :(
IrishKingpin1984 1 year ago
Ivo's bread and butter is taking great song writing and turning out complete masterpieces. TMC version FTW. It's almost unfair.
AdamRobertPalmer 1 year ago
@AdamRobertPalmer their cover really sucks, not gonna lie. i like how this song sounds really similar to stuff shoegaze bands were doing 20 years after
hebesphenomegacorona 1 year ago
maybe, you maight be right... the most wonderful song... (one of them 3...-)) but:_ my very most liked version is: this mortail coil...s version! thanks for the lyrics... but in the whole: it reaches my heart!!!! the right speed, the right voice,the right time, ...i was looking for this song ....over 30 years of jearning.. i found it now... i can still deeply cry... drop some tears... whatever - it is so much part of my live....
I3loor 1 year ago
Didnt know Alex Chilton had passed, reading up apparently he had no health insurance, Oh how unfairly are True Artists treated by their culture nowadays, maybe always? Meanwhile Lil Wayne is selling millions, Fuck. RIP Mr Chilton, thank you for this song, it saved my life.
milesgordon8 1 year ago 2
オレはただ黙ってひれ伏すだけ。
danballbat 1 year ago
Quite possibly the greatest album ever. This song=instant shivers
MrViuhu 1 year ago
here is beautiful cover of this song by polish band participated in SXSW 2010
watch?v=8jCNwl9vQtM
BezCzapkiBezSensu 1 year ago
To me it doesn't make any sense to compare Big Star to the Beatles, cos Big Star are SO MUCH BETTER. The Beatles mostly suck, and are dicks.. esp. McCartney. Big Star=über cool.
progcunt 1 year ago
@progcunt I agree. Even though I do respect The Beatles for being crafty tunesmiths and populizers of many musical underground innovations they´re music for the most part does nothing for me. It just doesn´t seem to have the emotional rush and soul that Big Star delivers in their music. Of course it´s ridiculous to compare bands, but yes, Big Star owns The Beatles hard.
MrViuhu 1 year ago
@MrViuhu big star better than The BEATLES PLEASE
mjrjk5 1 year ago
@mjrjk5 yup like about a hundred times better. Gotta problem with my opinion?
MrViuhu 1 year ago
@MrViuhu nope your intitled to your opinion even when its wrong
mjrjk5 1 year ago
@mjrjk5 how dear you tell me something I like is wrong? There´s no such thing as being right and wrong when it comes to tastes you douchebag. Bless all you Beatles fascists out there and your limited taste in music. I think it´s time to broaden your musical horizons buddy. I pretty much stopped listening to The Beatles when I was like 14 and have since then moved to ahem, one could say more challenging music. I like The Beatles and all but it´s the ultimate cookie cutter music there is.
MrViuhu 1 year ago
nice
carlos1234567898765 1 year ago
I wonder if at some point during the recording of this song, he just looked over, saw a cowbell and said "Fuck it. I'm gonna put some cowbell in this song." Because it comes outta nowhere, but it so damn predominate.
TheJamesVincent 1 year ago
@TheJamesVincent hahah probably, yes. lovesit!
Fazolina 1 year ago
@TheJamesVincent hahahaha this comment kills me =)
Fazolina 1 year ago
@TheJamesVincent He had a fever. There was only one cure.
Fermatprime 1 year ago
R.I.P. Alex, creator of some of the world"s greatest songs.
drstevie 1 year ago
20Boomer, you don´t seem to know much about music do you? Anyway absolutely gorgeous song. R.I.P Alex, perhaps my biggest musical hero ever. I´ll miss you very much.
MrViuhu 1 year ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Mugwamp, if you are under 40 yrs of age, you couldn't possibly understand the all-pervasive influence of the Beatles. Big Star's songs reek with Sergeant Pepper much like Brahms, Shubert, and the rest, all sounded like Beethoven, without the stormy soul of the Man. Disco killed the dated sound of Chilton and Big Star and many other bands who couldn't adapt, thus dooming Big * to exalted "cult status" like Nick Drake, Dixie Dregs, et. al.
20boomer 1 year ago
Rock-In-Paradise, Alex
gtrguru8 1 year ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I was a teenager in the early 70's and I tried to remember why I never warmed up to Big Star. Alex Chilton lucked it out with the Box Tops but BT was just a clone of the Beatles who, like the planet Jupiter, still warped all those around them with thier gravity, despite breaking up in 1970. I didn't miss a thing.
20boomer 1 year ago
yes you did
mugwamp4 1 year ago
That's OK 20boomer, we'll forgive you. Try to give the catalog another listen and hopefully you'll figure out where a lot of the later great pop music came from.
johnthomson321 1 year ago
man you miss out...not a clone , owe a lot to the beatles but its just glib to say they were a beatles clone.
fergaldavey 1 year ago 2
This is my favorite song of all time I think and didn't know until not too long ago that he wrote it.I had hear This Mortal Coil do it and it id fucking brilliant and I love
Mister Chilton musically as few others..I feel so sad!! I didn't even know of him till last year and thank you ..for turning me onto him..I can't believe I never knew of him ..I have much to make up for.
kristlkrost 1 year ago 2
Much love, Alex! R.I.P
suzette2883 1 year ago
RIP
struantheruin 1 year ago
I saw Alex Chilton in concert twice. The first was a solo performance at The Paradise in Boston in 2001. Four years later, I saw him with The Box Tops when he opened for Eric Burdon at a free concert on Boston's Esplanade. At the first concert, I asked him to play Kangaroo and he gave me a stern look. I understand he wasn't overly impressed with a lot of the songs Big Star put out and I guess Kangaroo was one of them. Well, it sure made an impression on Jeff Buckley and lot of others. R.I.P.
aargoldtakesflight 1 year ago 2
@aargoldtakesflight I saw something about his ambivalence towards Big Star -- something about being an experiment that didn't really work out -- but I think while he maybe expressed that opinion at one time, he must have either changed his mind or the opinion was overstated or he wouldn't have joined forces with The Posies to continue performing with Big Star right up until his untimely passing. It may be he didn't want to do a Big Star tune when he was performing with The Boxtops.
edscerbo 1 year ago
RIP Alex
marmiteboy99 1 year ago
Wilco's Misunderstood and I Am Trying to Break Your Heart -and maybe a few others- sound a lot like this song to me. Absolutely haunting.
Beakasaurus 1 year ago
Just found out. Think I'm going to spend the night listening to Mr Chilton in all his various guises. All the good ones are going - Ron Asheton, VIc Chesnutt and now Alex Chilton. RIP .
drumgold23 1 year ago 2
R.I.P, dude. so many wonderful songs.
AuthenticCelestial 1 year ago
Noone in rock history before him ever reached such depth, such depth. Alex you were a big,
massive star.
stefbren 1 year ago 2
just tooo good for this world.
kirneh64 1 year ago 10
I saw you staring out in space....RIP Alex
TheJamesVincent 1 year ago 2
RIP, Alex. Thank you for the music.
irisjaye 1 year ago 2
RIP Alex Chilton
sevenxviii 1 year ago 3
Rest In Peace, Alex.
SuperHimself90 1 year ago 2
I can't listen to this...I can't stop crying..i was such a lucky girl to have met and spent time with alex..r.i.p. my sweet prince!
sugarbabydylan 1 year ago 4
RIP!
crisscrash79 1 year ago 2
RIP, Alex Chilton.
citydog 1 year ago 2
RIP, thanks for all the music.
breadbutt 1 year ago 2
This songs makes me miss Alex even more...I don't pretend to have known him, but my musical right arm has been severed..
khwalt2 1 year ago 2
RIP
bronco6778 1 year ago 2
Just heard the news....R.I.P. Alex.....sad day.
tkerley 1 year ago 3
I feel like this song could be used to find a mantra. Close my eyes and I feel miles away........
TheJamesVincent 1 year ago 3
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VneckTshirt 2 years ago
There are some that get away with murder. They are so creative and daring. I really dig his voice. I won't mention Syd Barrett, or Drum String.
jeffdeanable 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
i used to love this. right now it sounds like a pile of crap.
blatspanner 2 years ago
@blatspanner
what happened to you?
786hanif 2 years ago
er....i was in a church play about aids.
blatspanner 2 years ago
@blatspanner and that ruined your musical taste?
786hanif 2 years ago
uh huh.don't fuck with those anglicans,mang.
blatspanner 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I am unable to comprehend the alleged greatness. This sounds like someone who is unsuccessfully trying to copy the Velvet Underground.
ZLUGGO 2 years ago
Not all of us are blessed with the ability to understand. Stick with what you know and you'll be okay.
chillidogdupree 2 years ago
@chillidogdupree
And your point is?
I think I had deleted my comment....
ZLUGGO 2 years ago
"Minimalism"is spread all over this song.The music is so profoundly and beautifully simple,the words go straight to the heart without beating about the bush.
november191968 2 years ago
this or 'holocaust'?
786hanif 2 years ago
it's true it's ahead of it's time but it's not an easy listen....Reminds me of the Porpoise Song by the Monkees in a weird way
oldskoolhooligans 2 years ago
wow. where the hell has this been my whole life.
youdick22 2 years ago 24
@youdick22
WOW you're in for a treat!!!
786hanif 2 years ago
Been wondering the same damn thing. How the hell did I miss these guys....
xciteful 1 year ago
@youdick22 ditto youdick22 wow, what the hell took me so long to get here?
dianesmusic1 1 year ago
Incredible.
lacerda70 2 years ago
our first love makes the last 25 years moot
motherginsling 2 years ago
Big Star makes the last 25 years moot
mthai66 2 years ago
Comment removed
VneckTshirt 2 years ago
this song is 75 years ahead of it's time, shit the damn thing was covered by devoto, that must give it star status, but sadly no. unfortunately it's only the spaniards who clock onto the good stuff, and i loath most of them.
oringetoe 2 years ago
Best comment on the site so far
mthai66 2 years ago
hmmm I was listening to the Yeah Yeah Yeah's song Skeletons, and it reminded me of this song. Like Flies on Sherbert
paulbunyonremover 2 years ago
theres no record quite like this, i dont know how to describe it. Just melancholic and sad, but in a good way.
Qmanklozmo 2 years ago
Yeah I first heard this on the original PVC LP of "Third" in 1978. Same year "Radio City" and "#1 Record" were reissued as double LP in the U.K. That's kinda when the Big Star myth began, people discovering this music five years after it had been done. "Third" remains what I think is Chilton's finest moment. There's a lotta "power-pop" but very few records quite like "Third." Nothing in my lexicon to match "Kanga Roo," "O, Dana," or "Thank You Friends." "Third" producer Jim Dickinson RIP.
eddhurtinski 2 years ago 2
please i would like to make a contact with somebody OLD enough to tell me more about Big Star and Chilton becouse i don't know people who are real fans and, if i talking about me - i think that i becoming one myself.... That old chap have a interesting and somehow familiar aura, so please anybody? The one who ask have a right to be replied...
DyllamDop 2 years ago
My father grew up knowing Alex Chilton. He could tell you plenty of stories.
possiblyj 2 years ago
why doesn't he then?
voivod 2 years ago
try reading about stuff
echoplus2020 2 years ago
Comment removed
kristlkrost 2 years ago
Anyone here heard the jeff buckley cover of this its almost 15 mins long. i was aware of this version first so please no hate just passing on information
beelzebozos 2 years ago
yeah i heard it , live in sydney . it was pretty rad
ricv64 2 years ago
They used to end most of their sets with this song and as you mentioned often drew it out to such lengths that their record company told them to cut it shorter...
I have been seeking a Jeff Buckley version of this song but can't find it here.
latenightcheeseraids 2 years ago
@latenightcheeseraids there is the jeff buckley studio version on the Grace 'Legacy Edition double CD' that came out a few years back.....its on disc 2.
vjoshbv 1 year ago
@vjoshbv Unfortunately I don't have access to it on CD which is why I find Youtube a handy source. I can (usually) find a song that had been referenced by someone else and listen and compare it for myself. (Johnny Cash's covers, for example.)
Jeff Buckley's version of this song (one of his most covered I believe) is sadly not available on Youtube but I can listen to the original inspiration and imagine for myself his sublime rendering of this song, which has become a favorite of mine now. Cheers
latenightcheeseraids 1 year ago
@latenightcheeseraids You say that you havent found the Jeff Buckley version on youtube. There is a live video version on here, search for 'Jeff Buckley - Kangaroo', it is posted by account nwa1973.
vjoshbv 1 year ago
@vjoshbv Cheers for pointing me in that direction. I haven't searched for it for several months and it has been posted since then but thanks for the heads-up.
latenightcheeseraids 1 year ago
@vjoshbv Cheers for pointing me in that direction. I haven't searched for it for several months and it has been posted since then but thanks for the heads-up.
latenightcheeseraids 1 year ago
oh man,i haven't heard this in years. some of the most magical moments i've ever had listening to music.
blatspanner 2 years ago
It's easily available at your nearest record store.
sugarydonkey 2 years ago
depends where you live. also,to not too.
blatspanner 2 years ago
BIG STAR BOX SET SEPTEMBER 13, Im really excited but I already have all their albums. Hm, I just dont know if I wanna drop 70 bucks.
mrballistix 2 years ago
It will be worth it! This box set is a fan's dream come true! A whole unreleased live set from '73 that is supposed to be the BEST sounding live recording by Big Star ever. Tons of unreleased tracks. 100 page book. I can't wait to get my hands on this thing!
moorlock2003 2 years ago
Yeah but 70 bucks just, I dont know how often I would listen too it. I'm going to wait for the Pitchfork review to make my choice.
mrballistix 2 years ago
I am an original fan, having bought Radio City and No. 1 Record back in '74 when they were out originally on vinyl, based on record reviews (they didn't get any airplay). This band means a lot to me.
moorlock2003 2 years ago 3
Sheesh, I didnt think people like you existed. What about Third/Sister Lovers? Its their best work and I think it as issued on vinyl in '79
mrballistix 2 years ago
The third album (it wasn't titled at the time) was being bootlegged on Reel-to-reel tape; can't remember exactly what year I bought it, maybe '76 or '77? I know it was before the vinyl LP came out, which was '78. It was quite a shock after the first two albums. I wore out my first copy of Radio City. Had to buy another one!
moorlock2003 2 years ago
Hardcore
mrballistix 2 years ago
Big Star is IT. I've seen the reformed band in three different cites; Los Angeles (where I live), New York (where I used to live), and their most recent US gig in Oct. 2007 at the Fillmore in San Francisco.
moorlock2003 2 years ago
too not to, imbecile.
sugarydonkey 2 years ago
I'm gonna wait for another human being to tell me what I think before I make a decision? Seriously?
tokyohalogen 2 years ago
Dropping 70 pounds might be a better idea.
sugarydonkey 2 years ago
It adds an extra dimension if one takes to heart the mythology...though probably true... that Chilton laid down the vox and acoustic on one track alone in the studio and threw it at the producer saying "see what you can do with that" as a jaded challenge. Said producer and the others certainly came through.
howelldrake 2 years ago
guitars werent used that way back then... like early sonic youth or.. late velvet under
watashiwanachodes 2 years ago
I don't get why the music has to be so jilted, disrupts the flow of the song imo.
Alianger 2 years ago
It's the sound of having created two brilliant preceding albums in the seventies that lost airplay to the likes of Foghat and Foreigner. Sour grapes? How would Nirvana sound if Seven Mary Three and Collective Soul had dominated the airwaves while they had gone unnoticed in the nineties.
howelldrake 2 years ago
Well fortunately (or not?) I've not heard any of those bands you mention (except Nirvana of course). But what does that have to do with how he plays the song? haha, that's just so out there I don't know what to say. I guess it'll grow on me though (heard the TMC version first).
Alianger 2 years ago
I think what he's saying is that big star's first two albums were perfectly crafted pop masterpieces, and they still didn't get any airplay/sell any records, so by this point alex chilton just said fuck it. Basically this is the sound of him falling apart.
tgodd 2 years ago
i always thot the kangaroo has the pouch. so just holding on and holding on....
fujitascale 3 years ago
I don't understand what he means when he says"I want you like a kanga roo".Does anyone know,perhaps?
november191968 3 years ago
I've always thought of this line as comparing love at first sight (or instant infatuation) to the way a child looks at an exotic creature the first time he or she sees it.
veranka3 3 years ago 4
Maybe I love you like 'I don't know what' ?...
"A common legend about the kangaroo's English name is that it came from the Aboriginal words for "I don't understand you." According to this legend, Captain James Cook and naturalist Sir Joseph Banks were exploring Australia when they happened upon the animal. They asked a nearby local what the creatures were called. The local responded "Kangaroo", meaning "I don't understand you", which Cook took to be the name of the creature."
ralphabetsoup 1 year ago
very interesting interpretation and probably true.thak you!
november191968 1 year ago
@ralphabetsoup Unfortunately no, apparently the local responded with the name of the particular kind of kangaroo it was - "kangaroo" - so they all got called kangaroo, despite there being zillions of different names for different kinds of kangaroo/wallaby type animals, plus zillions of different dialects that all had different names. Well, that's the story I heard.
theoriginalsuzycat 1 year ago
Comment removed
picchionero 1 year ago
@november191968 Big Star’s third album, Third/ Sister Lovers, was a chaotic, nervous meltdown of a record. Yet its weirdness was what made it compelling, as best evidenced on Kangaroo. A tale of lustful voyeurism at a party, it managed to convey teenage longing with a line as stark raving bonkers as: “Ooh I want you, like a kangaroo”. Instruments echo and clang. Distant voices wail. Then the entire song collapses in a heap, drawing to an end what may be the oddest sex song ever recorded. TJ
picchionero 1 year ago 3
@picchionero I don't think I've read a more sensitive comment about a song on utube.Bravo!
november191968 1 year ago
@november191968 They didn't originally write it- it's a copy/paste job.
revolutionaryspirit 1 year ago
the sound of a band slowly falling apart....beutiful :')
NewPaltzIndie 3 years ago 2
It's nice to see my Alex Chilton: Acoustic by Candlelight photos and liners are up there ;-) Those photos were taken, by me, on February 13, 1997.
conan1982 3 years ago 5
masterpiece. thanks.
tommyyum 3 years ago 3
the best song in the world contender.
thanks for the upload.
can we have holocaust please?
786hanif 3 years ago 3