The Shamen – Ebeneezer Goode

Its all about the Jolly Roger instrumental on this one. Worth buying just for that one.

A well crafted, rave tinged pop song replete with cheery melody and catchy chorus. Love it or hate it the lyrics are genius - an early 90’s addition to a lineage of substance themed pop hits which tapped into the zeitgeist.

It’s subversive theme facilitated it’s meteoric climb up the UK charts - to the horror of the red tops, and - to the delight of every adolescent across the country (myself included) bouncing around their bedroom radios; most of whom’s association with warehouses began and finished with being dragged around B&Q - not the M25 - one dank weekend by their folks.

Contextually, it rolled in alongside the influx of popular crossover rave singles: 2 unlimited-like stuff, toytown techno, breakbeat and other commercial dance fluff that was mainlining the charts in 1992, a consequence of the burgeoning notoriety of the rave scene. An additional reason The Shamen were much maligned (ahem) Dance music was becoming mainstream and this was the rave equivalent of hippy wigs at Woolworths 🚬 🥕💨

There’s a remix for every day of the week

i dotn seem to this when it was out, but i have a fondness for it. so much better than the horrors of cascada, ultrabeat, dj sammy et al that was to come. the early 90s was good , for everyone. including me..

Any reason why this didn't get a proper US release?

if you know Esar E’s a real crowd pleasure E’s ever so good E’s Ebeneezer Goode

Ebeneezer Goode was one of those novelty Techno tracks that became a number one song in Australia in 1992. Even though the song has cryptic but heavy drug references, the song was not censored at all because the Australian censors, authorities and government had no idea about Rave music and its drug culture. I believe the song was number one in England during the BBC's Drug Awareness week in 1992, The Shamen must have loved that! It's also surprising that Ebeneezer Goode is gifted a Richie Hawtin remix. According to Mr. C, at the height of Ebeneezer Goode's success, everywhere he went, people would shout at him: "E's are good, E's are good!!"

The Meat Beat Manifesto remixes take a "pop" hit and turns it into a ragged breakbeat beast of a tune. The vocal mix leaves you with vestiges of the orignal so you can orientate yourself, but once you hit the MBM instrumental, you're off the map. Every other remix on this shows its age, but the MBM instrumental is still a very respectable tune unto itself. This (along with some Orb remixes) set the standard of how to approach remixing for me. Don't just make a slightly different version/arrangement, but turn it inside out and upside down and make it yours.

This version (the French release) actually contains the DUB version of EG - unlike the uk release that incorrectly labled.
It is available on the UK Cassette however this version is longer.

I never understood why he was singing "A's are good A's are good.." ??
I always thought Move any Mountain was better anyway thats what we all danced to up in Scotland!

Some great Acid Dubs -- even the only vocal track (1 A3) is mostly an acid dub it has like 45 seconds of vocals. Richie Hawtin's mix is probably the only really different mix vs. the regular 12" and its pretty good as well.

I don't understand why they didn't just but both discs on one disc. I doubt anyone's going to mix one into the other.