It went to #1 in Sweden, and according to a Rolling Stone article from 1974, a few copies made their way to the United States, where a woman in Connecticut played the song in her record store. Blue Swede was a Swedish band, and they would perform the Jonathan King version in concert, getting the crowd to chant along. Blue Swede recorded their own version with more aggressive jungle sounds in 1974, and it was a massive hit, reaching #1 in the US, Holland, Australia, and Canada. The first use of the chant in this song, however, was in the 1971 version by the English singer and pop mogul Jonathan King, who added the Oooonga Chackas which were based on the chant in Johnny Preston's 1959 hit " Running Bear." King's version was a UK hit - the only version of the song to chart there - reaching #23. A few decades later, they would become unstoppable.There's a good chance you've heard this song with the famous jungle chant, and it was most likely the 1974 Blue Swede version, which was featured in the Quentin Tarantino movie Reservoir Dogs. Swedes had discovered their power to raid our pop-radio stations like viking berserkers. ![]() No ooga-chakas.) But the damage had been done. The band would land exactly one more American top-10 hit, a version of the Association’s 1967 tune “ Never My Love” that peaked at #7 later in 1974. Blue Swede took a half-decent American pop song, one that would’ve probably otherwise been forgotten by now, and turned it into a fucking wrecking ball, the kind of thing that drunk yahoos in karaoke bars are going to be gang-shouting for as long as there are drunk yahoos and karaoke bars.īlue Swede were not built to last. Skifs howls over all of it with Tom Jones levels of brio, making B. Everything about their arrangement seems scientifically calibrated to stick with you: the blaring horn riff, the high-cheese guitar line, the perfectly timed drum hits during the “IIIIIIII’m” of the chorus. Blue Swede’s version of “Hooked On A Feeling” cranks up the catchiness of the original further than it should be allowed to go. (In any case, Blue Swede took out even the most harmless drug references, turning “I’ll just stay addicted and hope I can endure” into the even-more-meaningless “I just stay a victim, if I can for sure.”) And yet that chant just bulldozes its way into your skull and stays there forever.Īnd it’s not just the ooga-chakas. The ooga-chakas mean nothing, and they don’t have anything to do with the whole love-as-drug metaphor. ![]() With their version of “Hooked On A Feeling,” Blue Swede took that dinky fake war chant from the Jonathan King version and weaponized it, transforming it into a loud-as-hell brain-destroyer. (“Blue Suede.” I know.)Ĭredit the ooga-chakas - or, if you prefer, blame the ooga-chakas. ![]() So it got an American release, and Blåblus got an English-language stupid-pun name. (Blue Swede’s arrangement was supposedly based on “ Do You Like Worms?,” an unfinished and widely bootlegged Beach Boys song, but the only real similarity I hear is in the deeper chanting.) Blue Swede recorded their version, and it became a big Scandinavian hit. Skifs, who’d started out in the excellently named Swedish rock band Slam Creepers, started Blue Swede as a cover band called Blåblus, which is some kind of Swedish pun involving the word “blues.” That same year, they recorded their big, ridiculous version of “Hooked On A Feeling.” Blåblus had started covering the Jonathan King version of “Hooked On A Feeling” live. Blue Swede started in 1974, as a vehicle for the Swedish pop singer Björn Skifs. Blue Swede weren’t even a band when the Jonathan King version of “Hooked On A Feeling” came out.
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