Henry Rollins’ “William Shatner” Story

Left to right: Henry Rollins, Adrian Belew, Ben Folds and William Effing Shatner.
I wish I’d been invited to this jam session!

If you haven’t yet picked up William Shatner’s album, Has Been, one of the best albums of last year, do it! It’s a great, offbeat collection of songs and spoken word tracks that more than makes up for the grevious sins of his first album, The Transformed Man (which features his now-classic manglings of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds and Mr. Tambourine Man).

One of the tracks I love on Has Been is I Can’t Get Behind That!, a call-and-response rant in which Shatner and Rollins take turns ranting about everyday things that drive them crazy, with drums providing a wild backbeat and Adrian Belew doing what he does best on guitar.

If you liked that track, like Henry Rollins or just like a story well told, you should give this a listen: it’s Henry Rollins telling the story of how I Can’t Get Behind That! got made [6.0MB, MP3]. Henry tells the story with his trademark intensity and energy as well as some oddball-but-enjoyable tangents. It’s 25 minutes long, but well worth it.