“Hog Child”

“Hog Child” is the fourth track on Good Morning Starshine, Strawberry Alarm Clock’s final LP from 1969. The overall vibe of “Hog Child” is bluesy, organ-fuelled rock, in keeping with the general feel of the album (especially as compared with the group’s previous LP, the curiously lush The World In A Sea Shell).

SAC uses the song to again show off some interesting arrangements and studio trickery, including a backwards guitar solo and some really cool tempo changes. At over five minutes, “Hog Child” is one of the band’s longer workouts.

Mark Weitz’s keyboards are particularly adept on “Hog Child”. His screaming solos wouldn’t be out of place on a Deep Purple album. The bulk of the middle section of “Hog Child” is dominated by the lengthy aforementioned backwards guitar solo — that’s the frequency, R.E.M.!

The vocals of Jim Pitman are again gruff and hollered, and heavily echoed. At around 3:20 there’s a great transition from one section to another reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix’s dramatic “Come On, Part 1” from Electric Ladyland, just before Jimi unleashes his great solo.

At the end of “Hog Child”, after the band has worked itself into and exhausted its various frenzies, comes one of the stranger audio collages Strawberry Alarm Clock ever did. This comes in the form of snorting hog noises mixed with hyper sped-up crying and laughing human voices. It’s like the end of the Beatles’ “Good Morning, Good Morning” meets Pink Floyd’s “Scream Thy Last Scream”. Weird.

“Hog Child” appears on…

Good Morning Starshine (1969)

One thought on ““Hog Child”

  1. Roughly recorded and overlong,but competent. Nice but not one of sac’s best although the band evidently enjoyed themselves in the studio recording it.

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