Track Listing

1. Curve
2. Slipping the Glimpse
3. Intro [Radio Expendable]
4. Varykino Show
5. Heart With Paper Walls
6. Me and Her
7. Brain Wash [Medley]

Product Details

• Released on: 1996-02-27
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Customer Reviews

My Intro to the Mermen Experience
Songs of the Cows was my first Mermen listening experience. I had read an interesting article about them while on a surf trip to San Diego somewhere around '96 and decided to check them out since the band was portrayed as rather "out there." I found a used copy of "Songs" at a Penny Lane record store and wasn't prepared for their psychedelic brand of surf music, so I might have been a tad let down at first listen (I agree with another reviewer's assessment that the album is "challenging.") So it grew on me - in a big way. Since then, The Mermen have become one of my all-time favorite bands and Jim Thomas is an excellent dude, always recognizing me at L.A. shows and saying hi. Plain and simp, The Mermen rule.

Wonderful, ecstatic, spirituality
I cannot understand the comments of the two reviewers below who gave this CD 1 star. They must be very young--with a very limited frame of reference--maybe they grew up on hip-hop. If you did, this is probably not for you. If you grew up on Hendrix and the Dead, Pink Floyd--or appreciate Jazz from the likes of Gabor Szabo--then you have come to the right place. For me, personally, the Mermen are very uplifting. They reflect the solemn beauty of the natural world--and the mysteries of the human dreamtime. If your banal existence is defined by the Marketing Mavens that run EmpTV--then don't waste your time--Mooks and Mid-riffs need not apply.

Mermen at their most challenging!
The Mermen breathed new life into the genre of surf music, and kick started its evolution again from the back eddies of traditional music and cover bands. This disk is one of their most challenging--but it is one of my favorites. The other reviewers who gave it a bad rating just simply do not get it. I don't know how else to put it. To understand where the Mermen are coming from--you need to spend some time surfing Ocean Beach, or Mavericks, to grasp their awesome power. Other times, cruise up hwy 1 from Santa Cruz at sunset and watch the glow on the horizon, the swirling phosphorescent plankton in the water, while driving through darkness and mist. The Mermen completely defined both the genre of Surf and the genre of psychedelic music. If you are up to the challenge, you will discover how ecstatic their music truly is.