The Germs “Lexicon Devil” b/w “What We Do is Secret” and “Sex Boy” 1979/2007. Anarchy Music, blue vinyl limited edition. Today, September 26th, is Darby Crash’s birthday (b. Jan Paul Beahm 1958, d. 1980). The three tracks on this 45 are from The Germs’ performance at The Whiskey in 1979. Raw and ridiculously fast – Crash can barely keep up with the music – he is at times unintelligible, full of growling and not-so-gently audience chiding (“you guys are boring-er than I am”). “Lexicon Devil” is one of my favorite Germs songs. It first appeared on the 1978 3-song release on Slash Records and that version is the best – a bit slower and not as polished as the faster version that appears on their only studio album, the Joan Jett produced GI. Allmusic says this about Crash’s “Lexicon Devil,” “he was one of the wordiest lyricists on the Los Angeles punk scene, and he crammed the song so full of fractured images and apocalyptic proclamations that he has trouble fitting them all into the song’s two-minute playing time. Pulling the song’s scraps of lyrical information together, “Lexicon Devil” sounds like little less than a bid for world domination by the punks.”

I’m a lexicon devil with a battered brain
And I’m lookin’ for a future, the world’s my aim
So gimme, gimme your hands, gimme, gimme your minds
So gimme, gimme your hands, gimme, gimme your minds
Gimme, gimme this, gimme, gimme that

I’ll get silver guns to drip old blood
Let’s give this established joke a shove
We’re gonna wreak havoc on this rancid mill
I’m searchin’ for something even if I’m killed

I’m a lexicon devil with a battered brain
And I’m lookin’ for a future, the world’s my aim
So gimme, gimme your hands, gimme, gimme your minds
So gimme, gimme your hands, gimme, gimme your minds
Gimme, gimme this, gimme, gimme that

Empty out your pockets, you don’t need their change
I’m giving you the power to rearrange
Together we’ll run to the highest prop
Tear it down and let it drop away

I’m a lexicon devil with a battered brain
And I’m lookin’ for a future, the world’s my aim
So gimme, gimme your hands, gimme, gimme your minds
So gimme, gimme your hands, gimme, gimme your minds
Gimme, gimme this, gimme, gimme that