Today’s classic 1971 song of the day is “Signs” by a Canadian group called Five Man Electrical Band. Released in May of 1971, the single hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“Signs” is one of those early ’70s hippie songs about a bunch of long hairs traveling around the country and observing life around them. In this case, songwriter Les Emmerson, the band’s frontman, was driving Route 66 in California and became annoyed at how the beautiful scenery was increasingly obscured by a plentitude of obtrusive signs.
Emmerson catalogued some of those signs in the song’s lyrics, including:
- A sign that said “Long-haired freaky people need not apply” for a job opening
- A sign outside a house that said “Anybody caught trespassin’ will be shot on sight”
- A sign at a restaurant that said “You got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat”
- A sign at some establishment that said “You got to have a membership card to get inside”
- A more welcoming sign at a church that said “Everybody welcome, come in, kneel down and pray”
In response to that last sign, the narrator, who didn’t have a penny to pay, took out a pen and paper and made up his own little sign that said, “Thank you, Lord, for thinkin’ ’bout me, I’m alive and doin’ fine.” Pretty typical late-60s/early-70s long-haired hippie counterculture thinking, which is probably why the single was so popular.
In 1990, the band Tesla covered “Signs” for their Five Man Acoustical Jam album. That version did slightly better on the charts than the original, peaking at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.
As to the so-called Five Man Electrical Band, the band was formed way back in 1963 as the Staccatos, changing their name in 1968. They had several Canadian-only hits, under both their old and new names, as well as a second cross-border hit with “Absolutely Right,” later in 1971.
The group disbanded in 1975 after losing all but two of their original members. (Tough for a two-member band to bill themselves as a Five Man band.) Les Emmerson, who wrote “Signs,” passed away of COVID-19 in December, 2021; he was 77 years old at the time.
