Nervous Norvus

 

MANY years ago, shortly after we were married, wewould often listen to Alan Blunsden's Rock and Roll show on Swindon Radio.
Alan had a huge collection of rare 50's R&R, and in this way we discovered Nervous Norvus. For shear silliness, 'The Fang' had to be our favourite.

  

When Dominic was old enough to to listen to music 'The Fang' was an immediate favourite. As far as he was concerned there could be no other name for his drag racer, and why not. Drag racing has a long tradition of silly names, one of my personal favourites was the bike known as 'Hoofhearted'.
 
 

Zorch

Um bully bully bully bully bully bully
Zorch means its Edgar
Edgar means its dimph
dimph means its there

Zorch man its nervous
nervous that's the most

Zorch oh its threatened
threatened means its new

Zorch ain't it nervous
nervous its the most

Transfusion

My foot's on the throttle and it's made of lead
But I,m a fast riding daddy with a real cool head
I am a gonna pass a truck on the hill ahead
( crash sound effects )
Transfusion transfusion
My red corpsuckles are in mass confusion
I'm never never never gonna speed again
Pour the crimson in me jimson

  

IN mid 1956 'Singing' Jimmy Drake released 6 singles under the name of 'Nervous Norvus'.
Why nervous I hear you say? Nervous in the cool language of teenage mid 50's America, was 'the most''. Apparently a lot of cool words originated from Red Blanchard's San Francisco comedy radio program, the popularity of which prompted Blanchard to release some 'novelty' singles. In 1955 one of these was 'Captain Hideous' backed by 'Zorch'. At left is a sample of the lyrics of 'Zorch'.

Jimmy Drake was heavily influenced by Blanchard and sent the latter a demo of a new song he'd written called 'Transfusion', which I think became his first single as Nervous Norvus. In an interview with Time magazine he gave one account of how he was inspired to pen this classic:
"I was driving, see, cool like down the freeway. A young kid in a twin pipe job came up on me fast on the right. He was a goner. He cockeyed near cooled me, man. So I said, 'Jimmy, lets write a song about this cool cat.' I don't even know the name of the guy. But I got even. Man, I got even!"

As for his pseudonym; "I invented Nervous, I'm the cat that invented that."

Transfusion reached number 8 in the 1956 charts aided by its road crash sound effects and gruesome lyrics, sample at left.
 

Now you too can enjoy Nervous Norvus in all his glory with this 40 second sample of 'The Fang'
Right click here and choose 'save target as'.

  

 

HOWEVER our firm favourite is 'The Fang' which didn't even chart when released in September '56.
Featuring Drake's great voice, science fiction sound effects to suit its jiving Martian hero and a classic chorus;

Yool yappa yappa zoink zoink
Yool yappa yappa zoink zoink!

If you need more detail of the Nervous Norvus story go to our Links page.
For contemporary nervous type records e.g.. 'My little sisters got motorbike' by the Klingonz or 'Kill baby kill' by the Photon Torpedoes ( note sci fi influence! ). Beam along to Nervous Records excellent site via our Links page.