Song · Devo
“Jocko Homo” by Devo
From the album Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978)
“Jocko Homo” by Devo appears on 15 radio countdowns from 5 stations between 1977 and 2013. It was first released in 1978 on the album Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!. Its best result is #58 on the John Peel's Forgotten Fifty of 1977. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #58 alternative song of 1977, #2,304 alternative song of all time and #58 of the '70s.
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"Jocko Homo" had been in Devo's live sets for years before it was ever recorded, and an early version turned up in their 1976 short film The Truth About De-Evolution. Mark Mothersbaugh wrote it, and in 1977 it landed as the B-side of the band's first single, "Mongoloid", on their own Booji Boy label, with Stiff Records putting it out in the UK later.
For their 1978 debut on Warner Bros., Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, they cut it again with Brian Eno producing and Conny Plank engineering, and it became the album's centerpiece: a jerky, lopsided march built around a call-and-response chant, lifted from the 1932 film Island of Lost Souls, that gave the record its name. The title comes from Jocko-Homo Heavenbound, a 1924 anti-evolution tract by Bertram Henry Shadduck, which says plenty about the joke Devo were telling.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | 58 | John Peel (BBC Radio 1) | John Peel's Forgotten Fifty of 1977 | 61 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | 285 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (1989) | 500 |
| 1991 | 291 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (1991) | 500 |
| 1994 | 348 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (1994) | 500 |
| 1996 | 324 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (1996) | 498 |
| 1999 | 913 | Q101 | Q101 Top 1,011 Songs of All-Time (December 1999) | 1017 |
| 1999 | 386 | WOXY 97X | WOXY Modern Rock 500 (1999) | 500 |
| 2002 | 413 | Fred (XM 44) | Fred XM Top 2002 Songs of All-Time (July 2002) | 2002 |
| 2003 | 862 | Fred (XM 44) | Fred XM Top 2044 Songs of All-Time (July 2003) | 2044 |
| 2007 | 1789 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2008 Songs of All-Time (December 2007) | 2008 |
| 2008 | 1760 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2009 Songs of All-Time (December 2008) | 2009 |
| 2009 | 1786 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2010 Songs of All-Time (December 2009) | 2010 |
| 2010 | 1830 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2011 Songs of All-Time (December 2010) | 2011 |
| 2011 | 1908 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2012 Songs of All-Time (December 2011) | 2011 |
| 2013 | 1979 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2013 Songs of All-Time (December 2013) | 2012 |
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