It's Electric!
“Make a Circuit with Me” by the Polecats, from the album Polecats Are Go
Second week of January, 1983
There was a time in my life when I wanted to grow up with a full head of hair just so I could own obscene amounts of product and grease my mane up rockabilly style. Then I’d slip on a white T-shirt and roll up a box of fake bubblegum cigarettes in my shirtsleeve to reveal my pasty arm. That’s rockabilly. Then my delusions of rockabilly grandeur got mashed up slightly when I listened to the Polecats. I always considered rockabilly to be jalopies and pure rock-n-roll and motorcycles jumpin’ and jivin’ and girls with poodle skirts that were innocent until proven guilty, not TRS-80s and Commodore 64s. Yet, the Polecats are a rockabilly band and their song “Make a Circuit with Me” was all about electricity and currents and electrical connections, it’s like Buddy Holly meets Johnny 5. What gives? Maybe it’s just some kind of romantic code I didn’t understand at the time. Perhaps I shouldn’t question things and instead endeavor to add the following lines to my bag of romantic sweet nothings I can whisper—“I’m an AC/DC man, check out my circuit diagram” or “Just plug me in and I’ll go-go-go”. It’s difficult to say if my lover would find me exciting or just confuse me for a vibrator. Either way, I suppose I win. Meanwhile, I’m bopping and beeping while this song plays over the speakers. What’s that sound? Oh yes, now that I think about it, I can hear the Polecats influence in the Stray Cats, maybe a little “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” sound too. Who am I kidding—I can’t connect these guys to Wham! This is catchier than syphilis on a naval base. Bring it on, Polecats! Go, cats, go!
Best Part: “… diode, cathode, electrode, overload, generator, oscillator …” (@ 0:31)
—N.J.