100 Greatest Songs of the 60’s #87 The Castaways – Liar Liar

Released: 1965

The opening line to any song is always one of the most important, an opportunity to hook the listener into a story way before the music does so. Think of all those classic, unforgettable opening lines – and then consider the beginning of The Castaways only hit single, which commenced with the immortal catch phrase “Liar, liar, pants on fire”.

There is a delicously bogus rumour that attributes the phrase’s origin to a 19th century poem by William Blake, but regardless it’s playground appeal was well established before the quintet from Minnesota chose to take the risk of being bracketed as a novelty spinners. Local contemporaries The Trashmen had already scored a massive hit with Surfin’ Bird, and the song written – by co-written by singer Jim Donna and Castaways drummer Dennis Craswell in a couple of hours – would go on to follow suit.

It had two things which ensured that it stuck firmly in the mind, despite the weedy sounding lyrical content; the first was Donna’s slightly peculiar falsetto, a keening trill that somehow made it peculiarly asexual. The second was use of a spooky keyboard motif, the result a polka-dot mash up of surf and garage which helped found the Twin City’s reputation as musical places of the strange and wonderful. And that’s the truth.