
The Troggs
PAGE ONE 1968
A-side: ‘Little Girl’
Punk progenitors take an existential trip.
In contrast to the lightly orchestrated A-side or the wild garage rock that made their name, Andover’s cutting edge export the Troggs truly let their hair right down on ‘Maybe The Madman?’ A fragmented B-side, written by guitarist Chris Britten, its descent into full-blown psychedelia takes a few listens to fully connect. Riding the distorted tide of Pete Stable’s upfront bassline their droned, spaced-out backing is a suitably disturbing backdrop for Reg Presley’s spoken words pondering the meaning of life, while its distorted robot chorus seems to come from another song entirely, zoning in with questions about whether “rain drops are just condensation our tears cry for children that lie”. If the A-side was a naked attempt to replicate transatlantic mega hit ‘Love Is All Around’ the public saw right through it, the single just scraping the UK top 40 and missing the US charts altogether. It was the start of a slow, gradual fall from grace that found them arguably become better known for The Troggs Tapes, a heated, expletive-heavy argument satirised in This is Spinal Tap, than their output. Either way, it never diminished the Troggs’ appetite for the game.