Of course, I could tell you why I love Let It Bleed or White Light/ White Heat, or other great albums, but you would already know why I love those records, because you love them too. On the other hand, the reasons why I love the 1968 album Wake Up… It’s Tomorrow by the Strawberry Alarm Clock might need explanation! Because if you were listening casually to this record you’d probably call it mediocre, fluffy, forgettable, second-rate 60s sunshine pop, with lame attempts at psychedelia that sound like a parody of The Doors. These songs were probably intended to be taken as a joke. However, Wake Up… It’s Tomorrow doesn’t sound like a joke to me. It’s a mix of high-fructose sunshine and creepy nightmares, a truly warped underground movie on wax. It’s incredible!
The first thing we hear is a drum solo, then a feedback drone, leading into the lurching Nightmare Of Percussion song. A soothing voice soon enters, riding above the backing track like a god or a floating head, offering some philosophical words to mellow us out: “Don’t worry about dying… you were meant not to live.” Oh, thank you, I feel so much better now! Wait… what!?!? We’re then treated to the gorgeous songs Soft Skies, No Lies and Tomorrow. Both are utterly beautiful, but also slightly disturbing in their very utopianism, like the words of a cult leader. And like at a cult compound, there’s something seriously wrong lurking beneath the surface of this album. Just hear They Saw The Fat One Coming. Accompanied by some serpentine guitar atmosphere, a mysterious stranger arrives in town, warning that he has come from a place where everyone died. For some reason, the town is soon consumed by evil: “We gathered at the church on Sunday, and turned the house of God into a place of violence/ With guns and clubs we met on Monday, and swore before the day was done there would be silence.” What the heck is going on here?! You could call it nonsense, but it gives me goosebumps.