The Song:
It starts with a classic sort of "momentum builder". In the first few bars there is simply a tambourine keeping time while the bass plays a melody on the upper register. It is a simple tune with two phrases, turning down at the end of the first phrase and then up at the end of the second. Other than the simplest of drum fills between the phrases, that is all there is. Then the drums come in in earnest as the melody repeats itself; this time with the bass skipping in half-tones through the phrases, and the vocals, darkly breathy, come over the top with a drawn out "yeeeaahhh". In the third go round, the vocals now come in earnest, but are still soft and breathy and it is difficult to make out what the exact words are, partially because there is so much echo on them, and partially because the words don't make a great deal of sense: Looking back on the track, for a little green back. Got to find just the kind or I'm losing my mind. But you don't worry about the lyrics. We're about thirty seconds in and we have all figured out that this is not a song where the words matter too much.
The momentum continues to build; on the fourth "go round", in comes the guitar with sharp up-stokes on the off-beat. On the fifth time through the melody, the vocals suddenly become louder and fuller, and the guitar is louder too. Then the energy drops slightly as the vocals drop out of the sixth "go round", replaced by the lead guitar which picks the melody out.
We are now almost a minute into the song, when it breaks into the chorus - one of the strangest and least intuitive choruses in all of pop music - and the vocal changes from an imitation of Eric Burden doing "House of the Rising Sun" to Tom Jones singing "My Delilah". The shift in tone is so quick and clean that it grabs the listener by the neck- wait this isn't how this is supposed to go! - but yet what should be a train wreck somehow isn't. Somehow this lounge act chorus actually works; it soars majestically, then the guitar picks out the chorus, and then, in complete violation of every pop song writing rule, the chorus is sung again! Then we are slowly, gently, brought back to earth; back to the bass-driven groove. At this point many music purists have turned off their AM radios, while many more listeners could probably use a cigarette; there is an undeniably sexual structure to the song. Which is how Rock n' Roll got it's name in the first place, right?
We go through this whole cycle again in a slightly truncated manner, only this time after the vocal/guitar section of the chorus there is another surprise - an upward modulation before the second vocal turn through the chorus, which provides a note of tension, and then the key changes into something strangely minor for a couple bars before settling back to the now very familiar lead guitar section.
The last twenty seconds are a slow fade out with the vocalist, in full lounge mode, scatting along.
And there we have it: Little Green Bag. One of the oddest songs ever to become a hit. It is charmingly and ominously odd. It manages to be mildly threatening and disarmingly goofy at the same time. It is unquestionably a pop song, and yet it seems to be coming from a non-mainstream point of view. As is the case with many songs from the late sixties and earlier seventies, we wonder just to what degree this is a song about drugs (what, exactly, is in this bag of which you sing?). Yet even while the listener is groping around trying to figure out where the heck this song is coming from, they are also finding themselves totally under it's spell of catchy hooks and cheesy vocals. It is this complex reaction to the song that has made some people so uncomfortable that they have, in their wish to simply their relationship to the song, dismissed it as a novelty song.
Who is "George Baker Selection?"
Often it is the artist who is situated outside of a culture who is in the best position to comment on it, or to see creative possibilities that the artist that is fully immersed in a culture would be blind to. In this case the artist behind the song was Johannes Bouwens, a young Dutchman who joined a band that did covers of American soul recordings. Eager to make a record of their own, the band pooled their money and went into the studio. At some point Bouwens took the name George Baker (apparently after a character in a detective novel) and the band became George Baker Selection. The first original song they wrote was a collaboration between Baker and the Bass player, John Visser; Little Green Bag. Much of what is so original about the song could simply be that the song writers had no idea about what should and should not work; they simply wrote something that sounded good to them. The fact that they were Dutch also might explain the odd lyrics, as Baker's command of English was somewhat spotty. Baker claims he came up with the lyrics "out of the air", and they do indeed seem to have that quality - as does the oddly ungrammatical name "George Baker Selection" itself.
The band cut the record but were clueless about what to do with it. It was a recording engineer at the studio who took the demo to a Dutch record label, which loved it, and arranged to do a more polished recording using an experienced producer. Within weeks Little Green Bag was being played on radio stations in Holland. It was a hit.
In all likelihood it Little Green Bag would have never reached the ears of the wider world had it not been for American A&R man Jerry Ross. Ross was an A&R man for Mercury Records who had recently formed his own labels. Ross had liked what he heard coming out of the Netherlands, and was convinced some Dutch acts could be successful in America. He brought back Little Green Bag and two other Dutch songs from a trip to Holland in 1970. Amazingly Little Green Bag would not be the biggest hit of those three songs - that honour would go to a song called "Venus" by Shocking Blue, which went to number one in the States and has been covered and used in commercials for decades now. The third song "Ma Belle Amie", by Tee-Set, did very well too, reaching #5 on the singles chart in America and getting world wide airplay. Not a bad trip for Mr. Ross.
In all likelihood it Little Green Bag would have never reached the ears of the wider world had it not been for American A&R man Jerry Ross. Ross was an A&R man for Mercury Records who had recently formed his own labels. Ross had liked what he heard coming out of the Netherlands, and was convinced some Dutch acts could be successful in America. He brought back Little Green Bag and two other Dutch songs from a trip to Holland in 1970. Amazingly Little Green Bag would not be the biggest hit of those three songs - that honour would go to a song called "Venus" by Shocking Blue, which went to number one in the States and has been covered and used in commercials for decades now. The third song "Ma Belle Amie", by Tee-Set, did very well too, reaching #5 on the singles chart in America and getting world wide airplay. Not a bad trip for Mr. Ross.
Sources:
George Baker tells about his big hit Little Green Bag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UsDzezEd5A
