“Private Idaho” by The B-52's

"Private Idaho" came off Wild Planet, the B-52's' second album, in 1980, a surf-guitar fever dream from an Athens, Georgia, band that had never set foot on an Idaho stage. (They wouldn't play there until September 13, 2011, in Eagle.) Asked about it before that show, Fred Schneider allowed that Idaho had always seemed a mystery to them, and that the song wandered over all sorts of things rather than poking fun at the state.

All five members share the writing credit: Schneider, Kate Pierson, Cindy Wilson, Ricky Wilson and Keith Strickland. The band produced it with Rhett Davies, who engineered with Benjamin Armbrister assisting, and Chris Blackwell was executive producer. What they got is new wave you can do the Twist to: a big, rumbling beat, twanging surf guitar and voices that sound beamed in from another planet, trading yelps like a slumber party gone off the rails. Cash Box heard a contagious rock dancer, which undersells the menace lurking under the fun.

It became their second Billboard Hot 100 entry, reached number 5 on the US dance club chart alongside "Give Me Back My Man" and "Party out of Bounds", and went to number 11 in Australia.

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