Sailor Martin sez, “Criswell-styled psychic Dr. Mysterian has changed his blog – he is now offering a song-by-song guide to popular music with a supernatural themes, including MP3 links. Of the first songs he has linked to, most are pretty obscure, although great, including The Coasters’ ‘The Shadow Knows’ and, unsurprisingly, Mae West singing ‘Criswell Predicts.'”
It is the same cackle that opens this song, which, with a vigorous, doo-wop melody and a muted, echoing chorus, tells an unexpectedly intrusive tale of sexual obsession. “You can’t even snap your fingers or wiggle your toes without the Shadow knows,” the singer informs us, and it’s meant as a warning to a straying girlfriend. Like many of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins recordings, the superficial occultism of this song is less interesting that the sense of sexual bewilderment and betrayal revealed by the lyrics. Here the singer expresses a rather queasy fantasy – that of being able to control, or at least omnisciently observe, his lover’s errant sexual behavior. This fantasy is made even more sinister by the band’s incessant chortling throughout the song and the lead singer’s audible mirth in explaining his extraordinary powers. “I know where you’re going, baby, long before you do,” he warns, and while the song is a fine one, with one of Lieber and Stoller’s catchier melodies, one can’t help but feel sorry for the girlfriend in the song, who is the victim of endless psychic stalking.
(Thanks, Sailor Martin!)