Good for Your Soul

Good for Your Soul
Studio album by Oingo Boingo
Released	July 26, 1983
Recorded	Baby O Recorders and Crystal Industries, June 1983
Genre	New Wave, Ska
Length	41:42
Label	A&M
Producer	Robert Margouleff
Oingo Boingo chronology
Nothing to Fear (1982) Good for Your Soul (1983) So-Lo (1984)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
George Starostin	[2]

Good for Your Soul is the third album by Oingo Boingo. It was released in 1983 and was their final album for A&M Records before transferring to MCA Records. Several songs were recorded but omitted from Good for Your Soul, including "All the Pieces", "Head in the Clouds", "Waiting for You" and "Lost Like This" (a song re-recorded and issued on the 1994 album Boingo).

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Danny Elfman. 

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Who Do You Want to Be"	3:31
2.	"Good for Your Soul"	3:16
3.	"No Spill Blood"	3:42
4.	"Cry of the Vatos"	2:21
5.	"Fill the Void"	3:42
6.	"Sweat"	4:31
7.	"Nothing Bad Ever Happens to Me"	3:45
8.	"Wake Up (It's 1984)"	4:44
9.	"Dead or Alive"	4:04
10.	"Pictures of You"	4:03
11.	"Little Guns"	3:42
Total length:		41:42

Personnel

Oingo Boingo

• Danny Elfman - lead vocals, rhythm guitar
• Steve Bartek - lead guitar
• Kerry Hatch - bass guitar, bass synthesizer
• Johnny "Vatos" Hernandez - drums
• Richard Gibbs - keyboards
• Sam "Sluggo" Phipps - lead tenor, clarinet
• Leon Schneiderman - alto saxophone, baritone saxophone
• Dale Turner - trumpet, trombone

The liner notes from Good For Your Soul also state:

Original Instruments: Leon Schneiderman

Horn Arrangements: Steve Bartek

All Horn Solos by Sluggo and Dale

Additional horns on "Vatos", "Dead or Alive" and "Wake Up" by Miles Anderson and Mario Guarneri

Harmonica on "Sweat" by Jimmy Wood

Availability

As of 2009^[update], the album is out of print, though it is available on the iTunes Store.

Trivia

• The track "No Spill Blood" is based on H. G. Wells' novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, and appears to directly quote Erle C. Kenton's 1933 film adaption of this novel, Island of Lost Souls. In this story, the mad scientist Dr. Moreau performed operations on wild beasts in order to make them more human and able to undertake menial tasks. When the beasts acted in an inappropriate manner, Dr. Moreau would crack his whip and challenge the beasts. In the film, this takes the form of a litany:

Dr. Moreau: What is the law?

Sayer of the Law: Not to eat meat, that is the law. Are we not men?

Beasts (in unison): Are we not men?

Dr. Moreau: What is the law?

Sayer of the Law: Not to go on all fours, that is the law. Are we not men?

Beasts (in unison): Are we not men?

Dr. Moreau: What is the law?

Sayer of the Law: Not to spill blood, that is the law. Are we not men?

Beasts (in unison): Are we not men? [1]

The repeated "Are we not men?" in this passage was also the source of Devo's song "Jocko Homo".

• The track "Wake Up (It's 1984)" is based on the George Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four in which the entire world is controlled by three separate socialist super-states who are constantly at war with each other. The main plot follows one man joining a rebellion against a pseudo-futuristic socialist England. The government is referred to as "Big Brother" and through an extensive spy network as well as subliminal indoctrination manage keep tabs on every single person in the country. "Big Brother is watching you^[3]"

• In the anime YuYu Hakusho, the character Kazuma Kuwabara has an Oingo Boingo poster in his room, depicting the cover art from Good for Your Soul.

• The track "Cry of the Vatos" contains a secret message recorded backwards. The backmasked message in this track is a satire of evangelical preachers.

• The track "Who Do You Want to Be" is featured on the soundtrack to the video game Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. It is also featured in the Nintendo DS version of Tony Hawk's American Sk8land. However, both games contain the Boingo Alive re-recording from 1988, and not the original recording from this album.

• The track "Who Do You Want to Be" is featured in the 1980s movies Bachelor Party and Teen Wolf Too.

• The track "Who Do You Want to Be" is covered by Sacred Reich in their 1996 album Heal

• The track "Little Guns" is based on the short story Battleground by Stephen King.

References

1. ^ http://www.allmusic.com/album/r14408
2. ^ http://starling.rinet.ru/music/oingo.htm
3. ^ Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four.