The strange moment The B-52’s came up with their name
The mid-1970s was the moment for punk.
In the UK, Sex Pistols were smashing everything up and swearing on TV, in New York, acts like the Ramones, Television, Patti Smith and more were taking the city’s venues and turning them into rough and ready rock venues, making things dark, angsty and poetic, and then, amongst the crowd there was a colourful unit that stuck out like a sore thumb: The B-52’s.
Despite how iconic they are now, there’s something funny about imagining the first time The B-52s landed to play in New York. After forming in Georgia, away from any key music scene or genre-specific crowd, ‘Rock Lobster’ gave them their first and unusual hit.
While the end of the 1960s seemed to suggest that heavier music was about to dominate, and the prominence of angry and moody punk music, ‘Rock Lobster’ was an unlikely underground smash as the buzzing world of subcultures heard this catchy yet weird track and clearly couldn’t get it out of their heads.
It’s an earworm in every sense, such that, even if you sing it once in your mind, it sticks there all day, so when the tune was released, vinyl copies sold quick and their name spread fast, and suddenly, they were onstage at the CBGB, like a colourful explosion of beehives and eccentric vintage dress amidst the graffiti-laden venue. For the regular punk crowd, it must have been a shock to the system, but somehow, they embraced the band.
The impact of ‘Rock Lobster’ is honestly fascinating. Now, it feels like a joke song, like a meme almost, but back then, it was a sensation. The B-52s were experimenting in a vein never heard before, taking the wild ethos of punk but then building songs more in the world of pop or dance, playing a hand in inventing what would be called ‘new wave’ simply because how else do you label something so fresh and unique?
Regardless of its kookiness, it appealed broadly. Even John Lennon loved the song, once claiming it inspired him to get back to making his own music in another wild tale about the silly little ditty. Yet for a band with so much life, colour and humour to them, ‘The B-52s’ is a strangely straightlaced name.
How did The B-52s get their name?
In the band’s world of colour, odd stories and danceable rhythms, having a name that is simply a letter and two numbers feels weirdly strict and rigid, but to them, that contraction was a perfect way to present themselves. According to vocalist Kate Pierson, it was Fred Schneider who came up with the name in a dream, telling Q magazine, “Keith thought of the name. He had a dream, like a vision of a little lounge band and they all played organs and had bouffant hairdos, and someone said, ‘Look, it’s the B-52s’”.
When an idea arrives as fully formed as that, it’s tough to deny or shake off, and so it stuck. The name also helped set their style as Pierson continued, “B-52 was slang for a nosecone-shaped hairdo, named after the bomber”, leading to her signature hair.
All coming together, every part of the name seemed to make sense to them as she explained, “We thought, ‘This is a great name: It’s a number and a letter, it’s really different and snappy’”. It even then had a political element as the singer added, “But now there’s this plan to prolong the life of the B-52 bomber, and we’re lending our name to a campaign to stop it”.
Easy to remember, echoing a style and even with the political edge that the punk scene demanded, helping them infiltrate even more, The B-52s arrived in a dream, and became a reality.
