Five Years Ahead of My Time

I have had the Nuggets-Artyfacts of Pop boxed set for twenty years. It’s four discs of garage rock that would inspire punk rock. Some of the songs became big pop hits as well. There are tons of songs I love in this; “Talk Talk” by Music Machine, “Laugh Laugh” by Beau Brummell, “I Had too much to Dream Last Night,” by The Electric Prunes. What a name, The Electric Prunes! 

There is a song I always liked called, “I’m Five Years Ahead of My Time.” The band, the Third Bardo didn’t last. The song wasn’t a big hit. 

This is the big discovery for me. The song was written by Victoria Pike. She normally wrote soul or these big sounding songs with orchestras and multiple singers. Out of the blue, she wrote this garage rock song. The other surprise, not it should be, was it was produced by Teddy Randazzo.

 Randazzo who wrote and produced classics like “Going Out of My Head” for Little Anthony. Randazzo who produced songs for the Roulette and DCP record labels.

 Randazzo had been a pop singer. 

Randazzo who was a songwriting and production partner with Victoria Pike. 

He produced a variety of music in a variety of genres so this shouldn’t be surprising.  Randazzo wasn’t one to do a stripped down raw song like this.

The song wasn’t a hit at the time. It has since become a punk rock staple. The Cramps and Monster Magnet do the song in concert. There are several indie bands that covered the song. 

The songwriting and producing team of Randazzo-Pike were responsible for another classic out of their zone and was years ahead of its time.