Watch The B-52s perform ‘Mesopotamia’ live in 1983
Formed in the college town of Atlanta in 1976, The B-52s were on the scene long before groups like R.E.M., Widespread Panic, Indigo Girls and Flat Duo Jets won Georgia a reputation for breeding world-class music acts. In the mid-1970s, Atlanta’s music scene was in the midst of a transformation. On its fringes were five outcasts who decided to come together to form a kitschy new-wave outfit that stood in opposition to everything that mainstream rock held dear. In this footage from 1983, Ricky Wilson and the band perform their hit record ‘Mesopotamia’.
Wilson really was the beating heart of The B-52s. A one-man band in constant competition with several vocalists, he helped develop the angular, warped pop sound the 52s are known for today. With Keith Strickland’s surf-rock drumming style providing a solid foundation, The B-52’s pioneered a weird and wacky sound that even John Lennon – a famously hard man to impress – adored.
In the summer of 1980, Lennon was interviewed for Playboy Magazine. During the conversation, he was asked what music he was currently listening to. “I enjoy the B-52s because I heard them doing Yoko,” he replied. “It’s great. If Yoko ever goes back to her old sound, they’ll be saying, ‘Yeah, she’s copying the B-52s.’” In an interview recorded just three days before his death, Lennon cited ‘Rock Lobster’ as one of the key influences behind Double Fantasy. “I was at a dance club one night in Bermuda,” Lennon said. “Upstairs, they were playing disco, and downstairs I suddenly heard ‘Rock Lobster’ by the B-52s for the first time. Do you know it? It sounds just like Yoko’s music. I said to myself, ‘It’s time to get out the old axe and wake the wife up.'”
‘Mesopotamia’ was recorded three years after the release of ‘Rock Lobster’, appearing on The B-52s’ 1981 album of the same name. A perhaps knowingly inaccurate history lesson about ancient Mesopotamia – located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is today a region encompassing Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, and Turkey – the track sees Fred Schneider invite the listener to “turn your watch back / about a hundred thousand years,” to the building of the mystery “third pyramid.”
“‘Mesopotamia’ was a cool song,” Cindy Wilson explained in a 2019 Songfacts interview. “It came from a poem Fred had. We were all jamming on it, so Kate and I got out licks like, ‘Throw that beat in the garbage can!’ That’s one of my favourites now – I wasn’t so crazy about it at the time, but now it’s really one of my favourites.” You can watch The B-52’s performing it live in 1983 above.
