Bo Diddley: "Pills" (Checker)

Ah, yes, Bo Diddley! The man! The legend! The whatever-else-adjective-fits! I mean, what can you really say about him and his great Checker sides? Well, I dug up one here that's one of his more unusual recordings. It doesn't quite have the bottleneck chuka-chuka side you'd expect from his classics like "Who Do You Love" and "Hey, Bo Diddley," but there's still plenty of Bo rawness to satisfy your cravings. I would also describe it as a bit more jovial than the usual Bo fare.

Anyway, over a joyously chunky guitar riff, Bo tells the story of the time he's layin' in a hospital bed and "a rock 'n' roll nurse went to my head." She gave him pills for his toes, "but they didn't ache," and pills for just about everything. It gets to the point where Bo gets tired of all this jive, taking "this junk against my will." He calls out to the doctor, but the doctor goes to his head, too.
Poor guy.

This seems to be almost more of a novelty record than anything. As I said, it's not quite top-notch Bo Diddley, but it's cool and fun all the same. The year for this is 1961 and that's about all I have to say about it.