Batman/Jan and Dean

This week Classics Rock! is featuring songs based on comic books in honor of Comic-Con 2009, taking place in San Diego July 23-26.

The sixties pop duo Jan and Dean capitalized on the craze stirred up by the campy Batman television series, based on Bob Kane's DC Comics character, with a tribute album called Jan and Dean Meet Batman, released in 1966. It featured zany sound effects and comedy bits mixed in with songs about the Caped Crusader, including this track, simply called Batman. Heavily influenced by Neal Hefti's guitar-driven theme for the TV show, the song lays out the basic facts behind the Batman mythos to a peppy sixties beat: He's known as Bruce Wayne by day, wealthy socialite/But incognito in dress, he fights crime by night. The Riddler, Penguin, and Joker are all mentioned (the Joker's laugh can be heard at one point), as are Robin the Boy Wonder, the Batphone, the Batcave, and even the Commissioner. The lyric Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot sounds like a line Adam West would have delivered on the show. No one can deny the truth of the song's repeated refrain: We need the Batman!

Comic Books/Deborah Harry

All next week Classics Rock! will feature songs based on comic books in honor of Comic-Con 2009, taking place in San Diego July 23-26. Here's a preview...

"Comic Books," by a post-Blondie Deborah Harry, can be found on her solo album Def, Dumb & Blonde, released in 1989. The song features references two Archie Comics characters--Archie himself, created by John L. Goldwater; and Josie, the character created by Dan DeCarlo who originally appeared as "She's Josie" and then just "Josie," before morphing into "Josie and the Pussycats": Long before I was 12/I would read by myself/Archie, Josie, super-heroes/I would read them by myself. There's also a reference to the popular 1960s TV series based on Bob Kane's DC Comics character Batman: 14 was a gas for me/Batman on TV/I would cheer the super-heroes/They were all I wanted to be. In the end, Harry concludes: It's so funny how I got to look/Like all the people in my comic books--no doubt another reference to fellow rock-and-rollers Josie and the Pussycats, rather than Archie. Or Batman.