Ohio based songwriting duo Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia have always resented
the ‘novelty’ tag often attached to their work by the wider musical community.
They must, therefore, feel the odd twinge of
we-have-kind-of-bought-this-upon-ourselves-ness when considering their back
catalogue, which includes Merry Christmas In The NFL, E.T. I Love You,
Pog Nation and Do The Donkey Kong. But it is for their 1982 hit
Pac Man Fever, taken from the album of the same name, for which they are
best remembered. On its initial release, it peaked at number 9 in the US
Billboard charts, which, when you consider that it thereby outperformed The
Beatles’ She Loves You, is not bad going.

The pair had been mucking about with arcade game soundtracks for some time, and,
at the insistance of their agent, Arnie Geller, recorded Pac Man Fever as
a bit of a laugh. Being dreadful, it was rejected by every single record label
in the United States. undettered, and with the tune reworked somewhat, Geller
set about releasing it himself, locally in Atlanta. Managing to get the single
played by an obscure Georgia disc jockey happened upon a niche market, triggered
an incredible ten thousand sales within a week.

Yet more madness was
awaiting the pair. The son of a CBS executive wouldn’t stop playing the song.
CBS contacted Buckner and Garcia, who stated that they were primarily artists
and were not interested in recording an entire album of arcade game-themed
tracks. Then, when Columbia showed them a large pile of cash, they decided that
actually, yes they were, after all, and moreover would complete the job in
thirty days. Thus it was that the greatest album ever to feature arcade noises
came about.

At the same time as the album was being recorded, civil
strife and widespread rioting was raging throughout many of Britain’s inner
cities. The Specials’ brilliant Ghost Town, with its ‘Can’t go on no
more/people getting angry’ couplet memorably summed up the mood of the
moment. The Jam attacked class priviledge with Eton Rifles (‘What
chance have you got against a tie and crest?) and even punk/insect fusion
rockers Adam and The Ants called, somewhat more bafflingly, for the sweeping
away of the established order by an army of antpeople. An examination of the
first verse of Pac Man Fever‘I’ve got a callous on my finger, and my shoulder’s hurting
too.’ It is a struggle to hear the smashing of petrol bombs and the
overturning of police cars through these lyrics.

In fairness, however,
Pac Man Fever was never intended to be anything other than a quirky
documentary on Pac Man itself, and to this end it performs very well. Three of
the ghosts are named – wrongly – for the first time in music history: Speedy,
(who is ‘on my tail’), Pokey (who is ‘too slow’) and Blinky (who,
we learn, is ‘out of sight’). Remarkably, there are even accurate
strategy tips for gameplay within the lyrics: the line ‘I’m gonna fake it to
the left, and move to the right’ pertains to the tactic of quickly moving
from left to right when cornered by two ghosts – a manouvre known as ‘jabbing’
by British players – which would often cause one or both of them to back off,
thus opening up an escape route. References to ‘getting all the patterns
down’ and ‘the ninth key’ – exploitable bugs within earlier versions
of the game – also mean that, if nothing else, Buckner and/or Garcia have played
an awful lot of Pac Man.

Being in many places really, really bad, the
album was never followed up, and the pair decided instead to concentrate on
radio jingles, which they continue to do to this day. If you fancy it, and
you’re at a lonely point in your life, you can catch them on tour now and then,
too.

Next week, as we work through the album, we’ll be examining
Frogger, both as a legendary arcade game and a lamentable album track. No need
to bring your dancing shoes.