“Planet Claire” by The B-52's

"Planet Claire" was the B-52's' second single, sent out in July 1979 as the follow-up to "Rock Lobster" from their self-titled debut, and it lands like a flying saucer at a beach party. The band built it on Duane Eddy's version of Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn" theme, and Mancini shares the writing credit. It opens with a real Morse code signal, a call tape transmitted by Canadian Forces Station Mill Cove in Nova Scotia.

From there it's bongos, Ventures-style guitar and Farfisa organ, with Fred Schneider and Kate Pierson on vocals and Chris Blackwell producing, the rhythm track too insistent to sit still through. Pierson later complained that engineer Robert Ash had doctored her voice with effects until it sounded like a synthesizer, and said she prefers the song live.

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