Day After Day #137: Godzilla

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Godzilla (1977)

One of my favorite things to do as a kid was watch monster movies on a lazy weekend afternoon. One of the Buffalo UHF stations we got on our cable system ran a regular monster movie double feature and I loved all of it. But without a doubt, the best monster was Godzilla, the prehistoric reptilian beast who is awakened by nuclear radiation and wreaks havoc on Tokyo. He was the coolest looking and the strongest monster; according to the Wiggitypedia, Godzilla has been in 38 movies over the last 70 years. 

So you can imagine how cool it was for young Kumar when I discovered there was a rock song about Godzilla by Blue Oyster Cult. The band got its start in 1967 as Soft White Underbelly at Stony Brook University in Long Island. After some lineup and band name changes, the group finally settled on Blue Oyster Cult in 1971, releasing their self-titled debut on Columbia Records in 1972. They were a hard rock/psych band with a literary bent toward occult and sci-fi topics, but at the same time, also had a sense of humor. 

BOC toured early and often in the '70s and built a faithful following behind songs like "Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll," "The Red and the Black," "Hot Rails to Hell" and "Career of Evil," but their first big hit was in 1976 with "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." The following year, the band released their fifth album Spectres, which featured a gargantuan lead single, "Godzilla."

The song featured lead vocals by guitarist Buck Dharma and singer Eric Bloom and opens with an appropriately monstrous and ominous riff.

"With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound/He pulls the spitting high tension s down/Helpless people on a subway train/Scream bug-eyed as he looks in on them/He picks up a bus and he throws it back down/As he wades through the buildings toward the center of town/Oh no, they say he's got to go/Go go Godzilla, yeah/Oh no, there goes Tokyo/Go go Godzilla, yeah."

Dharma, a terrific guitarist, plays smoking hot leads throughout the song, which ends with a frightening and profound refrain.

"History shows again and again/How nature points out the folly of men/Godzilla!"

I mean, pretty goddamn accurate, no?

For some ungodly reason, the song didn't chart, but it got plenty of play on rock stations and remains a classic rock staple and one of BOC's best known songs. The song has been covered by many artists, including Fu Manchu and Smashing Pumpkins. Most recently, a cover of "Godzilla" was featured in the 2019 movie Godzilla: King of the Monsters with Serj Tankian of System of a Down on lead vocals.

As for BOC, they remained a strong touring act into the '80s and had a few more radio hits ("Burnin' for You," "Shooting Shark," "Take Me Away"), but they were on the decline when I saw them in my then-hometown of Kingston, NH, in June 1986 along with Foghat, Molly Hatchet, the Outlaws, Jon Butcher Axis and Blackfoot. They put on a great show and, of course, played "Godzilla." 

BOC has remained active in the 38 years since then, only releasing five albums but touring fairly regularly, with Dharma and Bloom as the only remaining original members. Godzilla also remains active, winning an Oscar earlier this year for 2023's Godzilla Minus One.