Song Of The Day 4/14/2013: Garland Jeffreys - "Wild In The Streets"

I was going to put the Circle Jerks' version of The Soft Boys' "I Wanna Destroy You" as today's SOTD. Then I started clicking on things. I somehow got back to their recording of "Wild in the Streets," which became something of a skaters' anthem in the '80s. Turns out it was a half-cover of a song originally written and performed by Garland Jeffreys, a New York rocker with a fervent cult following. I'm a particular fan of Jeffreys' 1980 album Escape Artist, but never got around to hearing his other albums, which were a little late in coming to the digital spectrum. They are there now, so I have my Sunday booked.

Jeffreys' version of "Wild In The Streets" has taken exactly one hour to become one of my favorite rock songs of the early half of the '70s. The Circle Jerks' cover notably rewrites the original Jeffreys lyric about "two transvestites to beat the band." Punk was going through its first real macho phase back then. Cross-dressers still terrified them. It got better.