The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead - XTC

[Shalek]

I don't know which version I like best. They are quite different both, one happy, one murky. Maybe I am biased cause I heard the CTD's first and cause of Dumb and Dumber. Either way, thanks to XTC for writing such an awesome song.

[miketite]

I don't think a rotting pumpkin on a fence post was the true inspiration for this song -more like an excuse. The implicit lyrics and explicit video suggest otherwise, but sadly in these times such discussions are taboo and its considered a crime to accuse the government of a crime, so obviously they can't say outright "the songs about JFK -the last free-democratic president- and the governments involement in his assassination" (which is what all the evidence points to). Long live good music!

[neolithics]

I remember hearing this from a mixtape I borrowed. It was incorrectly labeled as the Crash Test Dummies version. I loved it an awful lot, and remembering it a few years later I looked for this version and discovered it wasn't CTD's, but XTC's. Thus began my love affair with a brilliant but sadly oft-forgotten band...

[duskota1]

peter pumpkinhead is about a jack-o-lantern that his kids carved that he found on his lawn so he stuck it on a fence post......... so every day when he walked down to his recording studio he would see that pumpkin.......... it would rot more and more every day and he started to fell bad about it........... so he made this pumpkin a hero in his song thus creating: Peter Pumpkinhead................. one of the greatest songs i have ever heard though.

[peanutula]

Though CTD made a reputable and well done cover of XTC's original, I believe that XTC's version is far superior.

[jacksonfan221]

I love the old music i wish more 13 yr old like would like this kind of music

[roomwithacatinit]

@jacksonfan221 Instead, they're all going deaf listening to scream-o crap.

[rhiandell1]

this song is well goood

[dejaqwho]

All the credit/respect to XTC for writing the song, but the CTD version is way better.

[hammerhead300]

@dejaqwho Agree. I'm glad XTC gave something for CTD to work with, but to be blunt, XTC's lead singer has a terrible voice.

[CommentClown]

You paid for the music... Really? And did your agreement include the rights to post it on Youtube and sell advertising banners?

Wow. Life is getting easy!

[MrKorton]

stop stealing from crash test dummies stoopid emo band! What a crappy version

[potstillbill]

@MrKorton This is the original, the guy singing, Andy Partridge, wrote the song. Crash Test Dummies were the guys who covered it.

[hardnight]

@MrKorton even though i dont have much in for XTC and i love CTD it does not mather... dont complane about them stealing from CTD when CTD !Covered! XTC's song. calling it a EMO band is a bit exessive as the common term emo about groups or individuals as whole based on style and interrest was not even in use at the time XTC recorded this--- also i agree with SidAndBob down there... this is a more a tribute to XTC from CTD than anything else

[SidAndBob]

XTC rarely got it right IMHO, but when they did they were magnificent. This is a truly brilliant pop song.

The CTD version merely mimics it and contributes nothing original whatsoever, but they always say that's the highest form of flattery.

[leforge]

This is the best.!! The Crash Test Dummies version is an embarrassment, Just another watered down version of a great song that got a ton of airplay in Canada to satisfy our stupid can-con rules that encourage the mediocrity of Canadian music. That's why I have to endure listening to Triumph's version of Rocky Mountain Way and worse of all the kings of fake-celtic "Great Big Sea" butcher Slade's Run Run Away. Long live XTC!

[Charactereyes]

@leforge disagree, erin's vocal performance was superior.

the original version has some major vocal weaknesses; regardless i enjoy both versions.

go ahead and disagree; i could give a flying fuck.

[thegirl44]

I have no problem with emulating an influence, leforge, but the fact that CTD's version came out exactly 2 seconds after this one irked me considerably.

And do despise that truly fantastic Canadian acts, Art Bergmann, The Rhinos, Jim Chevalier, don't get to share in the Can-Con umbrella with the likes of Bryan Adams.

[Vauxhall94]

personally i like both of the versions.

[dannydarko1991]

The crash test dummies cover of this song beats this version hands down

[21lelouch]

yeah!!! this is the original, XTC. honestly, i really love the original versions...

[21lelouch]

yeah!!! this is the original... honestly, i really love original versions...

[morganasex]

essa musica so me traz boas lembranças

[eldorado96]

Never really had much appreciation for XTC. I think the driving rhythm of CTDs version is much cleaner and more compelling than this one -- this sounds like it's just plodding along.

[derelict74]

did you just say that you liked an XTC song performed better by "The Crash Test Dummies" than by XTC? What's it like to have bad taste?

[eldorado96]

No worse than you would feel for incredible ignorance of the subjective nature of musical preferences.

[derelict74]

Whatever retard, you just keep listening to your Crash Test Dummies records.

[eldorado96]

Good one! You're what, about 16 or 17? Got into Mom and Dad's record collection? Oh, and my memory's a little sketchy, but I don't recall requiring your validation for anything.

Drop back by when when you have something intelligent to add that resembles actual dialogue on the topic.

[DNAdamsEdict]

I was listening to XTC before CTD got their pubes, and I really like both versions of this song...Covering songs is, more often than not, a tribute to a personal influence...except for when Dinosaur Jr. covered Just Like Heaven (the Cure). That was a travesty!

[ParanoidPajamas]

I actually really liked Dinosaur Jr.'s cover of Just Like Heaven. They really took it and made it their own, I think.

[andy3974]

It is a crime that this song is not better known but crappy as it is the CTD version has put money in Mr Partridge's pocket. XTC released masterpiece after masterpiece but critical acclaim does not feed the kids.

[Brownieelperro]

I love XTC!

[craigdoucette]

I was fortunate enough to get to see XTC live one time in the late 70's. At that time I already had loved this band a year or so. I pegged them as the Beatles of the 80's. Colin writes whimsical love songs and plays bass, like McCartney and Andy on guitar writing more cynical, deeper intellectual songs, like Lennon. This band is terribly under-rated and has a vast discography of excellent songs. Always striving to reinvent themselves starting out a quirky rock band and then deeply more.

[acting1961]

What an excellent song.

Thank you Andy Partridge !

[TempusTransit]

Why the hell are covers of this song more viewed and more spoken of than the original (far, far better than the copies)? Hooray for Andy's soul brother: John (the very pumpkinheaded) Lennon! And keep on playin' those mind games! Forever! Especially America!

[Tregidio]

Electric, vibrant and meaningful. thanx again for carlberg lagers back stage at the Brunel Swindon and of course the Lena Martell album cunningly disguised as posters and singles and badges circa 198* I forget :)

[chopwallace55]

this is great t fun!

[WeMustBeStopped]

I just saw the video of the cover by Crash Test Dummies...one of the comments said, "Wow, I always thought a guy sang this song." So sad some crappy flash-in-the-pan Canadian band stole any glory at all from XTC. What a great song.

[mt1eh]

Stole.....I think that is rather harsh to say espically given the fact that on the UK charts the Crash Test Dummies version reached 30th while the XTC version reached 71st.

Further, isn't it the English writer Charles Cabel Colton who wrote, "Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery"

Simply put, there are a lot of songs that have been covered and the cover version is more popular than the original...Check "Devil with a Blue Dress On", to name just one

[WeMustBeStopped]

??? I don't want to sound like an antagonistic asshole here, and judging by the thumbs down count on my comment you responded to, it was deemed a lousy comment, but you are only confirming what I said...The Crash Test Dummies, who charted higher than XTC with this song, stole some of the glory away from XTC , evidenced by a comment I read watching the CTD video and reading someone say "Oooh, it's a GIRL that sings this song, I remembered it as a song with a male vocal."

[mt1eh]

Sorry, I'm not confirming anything...You insulted and accused a band of stealing something that they did not do...They simply covered a song that more people enjoyed than the original version...That's not the bands fault. If you are going to be P.O.'d at someone be mad at the person who was ignorant of who composed and first recorded the song.

Just take a look at the cover of "Home" sung by Blake Shelton to see how many people really don't pay attention to the history of a song.

[WeMustBeStopped]

Oh Jesus..Look, I love this song and the band XTC. I think they are geniuses, and I don't have a problem with them being covered. The Crash Test Dummies, with whom I also have no problem, are a one hit wonder band from Canada (thus, my referral to them as a "flash-in-the-pan Canadian band".) ("Flash In The Pan doesn't mean anything bad, it just means "unenduring," "here today, gone tomorrow," something XTC, whose influence on modern rock is legendary and palpable, is not.) cont'd.....

[WeMustBeStopped]

I was not aware CTD covered them, and I read a comment from someone who stated they had heard this song in years past and remebered it fondly but were surprised to find a woman vocalist recorded this song. You see, they had actually remebered hearing XTC do it, but because of that video they saw, attributed it's creation to CTD. Therefore, stealing some adulation, some props, if you will, some glory away from the actual band responsible for it's being in that person's memory. cont'd...

[WeMustBeStopped]

So another soul goes through life thinking this is in fact some great CTD song, when it's actually sung by a band they may not ever hear because they mistook a cover for the original. It would suck if I wrote a great song and a cover of it charted higher than my band did-- kind of like stealing glory away. Especially if my band had a prolific catalogue of reimagined music that I occasionally didn't get credit for.

Did I just type all that? Oops! What I meant to say, mt1eh, was GO FUCK YOURSELF

[mt1eh]

Ah, so now you true side comes out!!!!!! So, how many people learnt through the CTD cover that XTC composed and sang the original version?

I'm sure it will be no surprise that I'd see it differently. If I composed and sung a song that had run it course in terms of popular play time and sales and another band came along and cover it, which generated more sales and play time, I would be estatic. Not only would that increase the popularity of the song, which the cover version by CTD did.Con't

[mt1eh]

but it would also increase my remuneration for writing the song.

Finally, your last comment was as ill thought out as your original post.

[WeMustBeStopped]

I feel I have no choice but to tell you that you are right. You win. Excuse me, I am going to go get laid now.

[mt1eh]

Thanks???? And congratulations you never forget the first time.....It's been fun!!!

[stluno]

This song is surely the culmination of XTC's career: underneath it is a perfectly-oiled complicated machine; on the surface it is an irresistible confection of gripping and affecting lyric, astute melody and instrumentation that gives it a momentum unsurpassed in rock music. It should become a national anthem.

[ilurvekimba1967]

That. Is. The. Best. Comment. Ever.

[rhiandell1]

i love this song

[terru212]

I love this song. its really beautifull

[brucewayne05]

if someone have the clip of this song please post it

[iancorporated]

Go Dumb and Dumber! Ya, rock on!

[d3p3ch3mod3]

That was a shitty Crash Test Dummies cover.

[letitiadevereaux]

Not quite. The Crash Test Dummies covered XTC.

[d3p3ch3mod3]

That's what I meant. I said it wrong

[MikkoKuusirati]

Actually, it was a TOTALLY AWESOME Crash Test Dummies feat. Ellen Reid cover. One of the precious few cover versions in the long history of pop music that are actually as good as, or better than, the original.

[d3p3ch3mod3]

That's because instead of doing anything interesting with it they basicly just plagiarized everything about it and tried to make it sound as close to the original as possible... If it's as good as the original it's because they did a cover band -style cover

[ilurvekimba1967]

Hey, this video uploaded badly. Sorry if it sounds weird. My stupid movie program hates me and did this as revenge for me using it.

[sgtchassmash]

sounds ok, but it's a touch tinny.