Peek-a-Boo!

"Peek-a-Boo!"
Single by Devo
from the album Oh, No! It's Devo
Released	1982
Format	7" 12"
Genre	New wave synthpop
Length	3:01
Label	Warner Bros.
Writer(s)	Mark Mothersbaugh Gerald Casale
Producer(s)	Roy Thomas Baker
Devo singles chronology
"Jerkin' Back 'n' Forth" (1981) "Peek-a-Boo!" (1982) "That's Good" (1982)
Oh, No! It's Devo track listing "Time Out for Fun" (1) "Peek-a-Boo!" (2) "Out of Sync" (3)

"Peek-a-Boo!" is a song by the American new wave band Devo, written by Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale. It appears on their fifth studio album Oh, No! It's Devo. The single features the non-album track, "Find Out" as the B-side, which was also released as a bonus track on the Infinite Zero Archive/American Recordings CD reissue of the album. "Find Out" was later re-recorded by Devo's bass guitarist Gerald Casale's solo project Jihad Jerry & the Evildoers for the album Mine is Not a Holy War. According to Gerald Casale from the audio commentary for their film, The Complete Truth About De-Evolution, "Peek-a Boo! was a song about Devo's circus-like look and the dark side of human nature, the side we try to keep secret, the side we try to deny, in this Christian world where we're only supposed to have happy endings and only supposed to be good, and instead Devo is dealing with what evil is here in a very light-hearted manner."

Promotional music video

The music video for "Peek-a-Boo!" eschewed Devo's previous narrative style for a basic performance against a bluescreen background displaying related visuals to the song. This was intended to replicate the band's intentions for the forthcoming tour for those who would be unable to attend. Some of the imagery on the bluescreen was made by Digital Productions in Los Angeles, which was one of the few companies in the United States to have a Cray X-MP supercomputer, which was the world's most powerful computer from 1983-85. According to Mark Mothersbaugh, the Devil faces shown in some parts of the video were a couple of black velvet paintings that the band had found in Tijuana and they had them animated. Also notable is the re-appearance of dancer Craig Allen Rothwell, who played the "Spazz Attack" character that appeared in Devo's music video for (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.

Track listing

• 12" Single

1. "Peek-a-Boo! (Dance Velocity)" - 4:36
2. "Peek-a-Boo! (Devo Dub)" - 5:24
3. "Find Out" - 3:22

• 7" Single

1. "Peek-a-Boo!" - 3:01
2. "Find Out" - 3:22

Chart performance

Chart	Position
US Billboard Bubbling Under the Hot 100[1][2]	106
US Hot Dance Club Songs	13
Australia ARIA Top 100[3]	45

References

1. "allmusic ((( Devo > Charts & Awards > Billboard Singles )))". Billboard. Retrieved 2008-06-22.
2. Whitburn, Joel. Bubbling Under Singles & Albums (1998): 64
3. Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 88. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.

External links

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics