“The Puppet” by Echo and the Bunnymen

"The Puppet" was Echo & the Bunnymen's third single, a 1980 stand-alone that Korova put out while critics were still praising Crocodiles, the debut album that had arrived earlier that year. The song wasn't on the album, and Bill Drummond and David Balfe produced it under the alias the Chameleons, with Ian McCulloch, Will Sergeant, Les Pattinson and Pete de Freitas sharing the writing credit.

It missed the UK chart entirely, and in the long run its B-side has had the richer life: "Do It Clean", which made the American Crocodiles and the UK cassette, became a favorite of fans and band alike, a live regular that resurfaced on the Belgian "A Promise" in 1981, behind "The Killing Moon" in 1984 and on many of their compilations.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.