Flaming Telepaths

My late father was never into the Blue Öyster Cult, and I never really understood why. He insisted that constantly hearing only “Godzilla” or “Don’t Fear the Reaper” on the radio ruined the band for him, and I can see where he’s coming from. It sometimes annoys me that my local dad rock station seems to think that there are only three songs by this band, the third being “Burning For You”.

Nevertheless, the rest of the band’s material, especially the songs with lyrics by Sandy Pearlman, are really far out. While rock critics like Martin Popoff might have called them a “thinking man’s heavy metal band¹”, what they really were was a band for literate conspiracy theorists because of their Lovecraftian and alchemical allusions and willingness to use lyrics by the likes of Michael Moorcock², Eric Van Lustbader³, and John Shirley⁴.

Consider “Flaming Telepaths” from their 1974 album Secret Treaties in particular.

Well I’ve opened up my veins too many times
And the poison’s in my heart and in my mind
Poison’s in my bloodstream, poison’s in my pride
I’m after rebellion, I’ll settle for lies
Is it any wonder that my mind’s on fire
Imprisoned by the thought of what to do
Is it any wonder that my joke’s in ire
And the joke’s on you

Experiments that failed too many times
Transformations that were too hard to find
Poison’s in my bloodstream, poison’s in my pride
I’m after rebellion, I’ll settle for lies
Yes, I know the secrets of the iron and mind
They’re trinity acts, a mineral fire
Yes, I know the secrets of the circuitry mind
It’s a flaming wonder telepath

lyrics by Sandy Pearlman

When I first heard this on the radio⁵, it was after seeing the 1984 adaptation of Stephen King⁶’s Firestarter. Not knowing that this song had been released in 1974, I associated it with the movie (and later, the novel).

But knowing what I do about Sandy Pearlman’s “Soft Doctrines of Imaginos”, I can’t help that it might be part of that random access myth, a description of what Imaginos suffered at the hands of Les Invisibles as they modified him to be their “actor in history”.

Even if you don’t buy the Imaginos connection, what if the lyrics are inspired by real-world history? Both Soviet and US military intelligence agencies tried to identify and exploit extrasensory perception for both espionage and direct military applications. I’m not joking here. In addition to MKUltra, which dealt mainly in mind-control and chemical interrogation research, there was also the US Army’s Project Stargate. However, none of this research ever turned up any espers with talents useful to the military or in espionage. If they had, I suspect that any related information would still be classified and not subject to FOIA requests.

Also, the War of the Magi⁷ might have happened in real life.

But let’s talk about the music. There’s that tinkling music-box holdover from the preceding track on the album (“Harvester of Eyes”) before Buck Dharma’s guitar and Allen Lanier’s driving piano hit the listener upside the head; the latter lends a certain desperate urgency to the song.

After the second verse we get three instrumental breaks:

1. Allen Lanier on synthesizer
2. an almost-classical piano passage by Allen Lanier with Albert Bouchard on drums and Joe Bouchard on bass
3. a guitar solo courtesy of Buck Dharma

It was that synth passage that got me as a kid. I had grown up listening to the likes of Yes and ELP because of my old man, and synth pop was huge in the 1980s, so when I started building my own music collection as a teenager I ended up wearing out my tape of Secret Treaties just by rewinding to listen to “Flaming Telepaths” and then “Astronomy”.

And the lyrics? Let’s just say that these lines in particular sound like a dead-on description of what it’s like to live with anxiety or ADHD:

Is it any wonder that my mind’s on fire
Imprisoned by the thought of what to do

Hell, I often feel like these just because of my autism. My brain won’t cool down; there’s so much I want to do, hardly time to any of it particularly well, and thus I tend not to do any of it.

And sometimes I really feel these lines:

Is it any wonder that my joke’s in ire
And the joke’s on you

My jokes are all too often a way to vent rage, and it’s always more satisfying when the targets of my ire don’t get it.

And what about these?

Yes, I know the secrets of the iron and mind
They’re trinity acts, a mineral fire

Are they a reference to the Manhattan Project and the Trinity nuclear weapons test? It makes sense to me because the radioactive elements used to construct the atomic bomb are extracted from minerals like pitchblende. I don’t know for sure, though, and I can’t prove it.

Besides, it might all be a big hairy joke. In a 1976 interview with NME, drummer Albert Bouchard said: “We tend to be too monolithic: the humor is lost. The joke’s-on-you point in ‘Flaming Telepaths’ is often missed, so we have to ham it up.”

What I do know is that “Flaming Telepaths” showcases the tongue-in-cheek esotericism of the Blue Öyster Cult, and its songs like these that have kept me listening to them for pretty much my entire life.

But while I’m still after rebellion, I won’t settle for lies. I don’t have time for that. I do have time to find some other versions of “Flaming Telepaths” for your listening pleasure.

Here’s a re-recorded version from the “Cult Classic” compilation. The piano line seems buried in the mix until the instrumental breaks after the second verse.

Founding member Albert Bouchard included “Flaming Telepaths” in his third Imaginos album, The Mutant Reformation, but it’s pretty much all guitars. It still slaps, though.

Here’s a cover by Witchwood, an Italian band that I suspect owes rather a lot to the Strawbs.

Here’s a cover by Espers, which takes a folkier and more psychedelic approach. Maybe we could have gotten some more like this if Patti Smith had done the vocals in 1974 instead of Eric Bloom?

And here’s a much heavier and down-tuned version by Great Electric Quest that appears on Ripple Music tribute album Dominance and Submission.

Finally, a live version from 1975 recorded in Paris where they skip the second verse.

Incidentally, Unlovely Frankenstein has a whole line of faux-movie posters inspired by Blue Öyster Cult songs, including “Flaming Telepaths”. But I love their “Lost, Last & Luminous” poster. I’m a sucker for Art Nouveau and it’s a reference to “Del Rio’s Song” from Imaginos.

…now you know the secrets of the circuitry mind; we’re flaming wonder telepaths…