Lyrics:

The Song:

In June 1998, Beck had just finished recording Mutations and went out on tour. I believe he started Vultures a few months later, and some of the song ideas seem to have been born as on-stage adlibs/jokes during the 1998 shows. For instance, in one 9-minute "Debra" jam, Beck started singing about making gentlemen cry realistic tears.

So then a bit later, Beck went to create Vultures and used that line again in a song then called "Jockin' My Mercedes." This was performed during a couple of festival sets during some of the brief Mutations promotion gigs. The song did change a little from then, but it was basically the same as what you know now, just under a different name.

"Hollywood Freaks" might be the most typical Midnite Vultures track. As the perfect example of the Vultures mood, "Hollywood Freaks" would have been Beck's first choice as a single for the album. "That's the one I would choose because this is what I would wanna hear if I was in a club...you know, on a Thursday night, feeling mildly excited." The song is a catchy and melodic, but at the same time, a bit of a goof, as proved by all the laughing and silly references.

Beck's a master at finding the right words to match the right attitude of the music (and vice versa). There are so many pop references, it's hard to begin! (See below.) Basically, as the title conveys, the song is just full-on freakiness: neon ladies, tropical oils, twenty-million dollar fantasies, custom clothes, hot dates banging pop lockin' beats. But as Beck put it, it's a riff on all "the pervasive R&B entrepreneurial superstar star-maker man-male '90s machines." (And Norman Schwartzkoff.)

Beck explains his love/hate relationship with Los Angeles, which comes out subtly in "Hollywood Freaks." "I love L.A., but there's certain elements that are repelling to me, but at the same time I enjoy it. I love to hate it. As a musician or somebody who works creatively, you tend to take things from your environment that bug you or disturb you and try to reassemble them the way you see fit. That's one of the licenses you acquire when you start writing songs or making movies. You're able to do odd things and rework the world as you see it. So I took the liberty to do it with Hollywood because it's taken liberty with me. It's a two-way relationship."

Often "Hollywood Freaks" is considered a spoof (as is much of Midnite Vultures), but Beck takes issue with that. He explains, "I don't think of that song as a parody at all. There is a fine line there but it isn't parody. I love the new stuff and the old school. That song to me is just my aesthetic. In my fantasy world that is the kind of hip hop song you would hear on the radio, hear Puff Daddy rapping."

Live:

Played live 112 times:
Earliest known live version: June 2, 1998
Latest known live version: April 16, 2023

1998-1999 pre-Vultures

Some of the earliest attempts at "Hollywood Freaks" were during the Mutations promo gigs, when the song was still called "Jockin' My Mercedes." There wasn't a full tour, but there were many festival appearances, radio shows, corporate gigs, etc. where Beck went out rocking. (The song would have been out of place on the short, proper Mutations tour.) Beck was halfway through Vultures recording when he had to go promote Mutations, and it's not really known when he recorded "Hollywood Freaks" (before or after these appearances). Nonetheless, the live version from October 1998, is remarkably similar, except it feels a lot less polished, and a little bit more aggressive. All of the lines and the arrangement are mostly there, but it's not as melodic as it would come to be, and there's even a cheesy xylophone sound mimicking the chorus ("I wanna know what makes you scream..."). Beck and the band do seem to be having an absolute blast playing this new song for an audience, especially when they got to the "Jockin' my Mercedes!" singalong.

Perhaps the first real hint at the song for many fans was on Beck's Mutations performance on KCRW on the morning of November 24 1998. He brought along his full band, and they performed 8 songs from Mutations. The fun came at the end of "Tropicalia," surprisingly enough. It ended in a long jam, where Beck dropped a bunch of Midnite Vultures references (which they were all in the midst of recording at the time). The lyrics of the outro, sung over the "Tropicalia" rhythm:

Mm, haha, I wanna defy the logic of all sexx laws
Negotiate, hypothesize my flaws
?? girlfriends with six-pointed financing
Liquidated properties, actresses with MSG erections
Norman Schwartzkopf, looks like you wanna go home
Champagne bottles, custom clothes you own
Calling up from special area codes
The Hollywood nuns calling up on the Hollywood phones
I got nothing to do, nowhere to go
I'll tell you what you want, if you want to know
Tropical heat, satin sheets
Turn up the heat 'til the swimming pool boils
Let all the neighbors read it in the papers
Making all the gentlemen cry realistic tears
'Cause I wanna know what makes you scream
Be your twenty-million-dollar fantasy
Treat you real good, expensive jeans
Hollywood freaks on the Hollywood scenes
And all the children cried on Blackberry Lane!

Combining it with "Tropicalia," even spontaneously, was inspired and may be my favorite version of the song ever.

2000-2001 Vultures tours

Naturally, "Hollywood Freaks" was performed throughout the Midnite Vultures tour. With the new female background singers, the song performed live has a new feel, and allows Beck to ad-lib a bit during choruses. The Brass Menagerie and DJ Swamp shine during the song, as well.

Later Vultures tour versions varied greatly. The May 21 2000, version from Fukuoka was a strange orgy with "Loser." After a short version of "Loser," a short bridge quickly turned into a seductive version of "Hollywood Freaks." It's a bizarre, but entertaining, combination. Over time however, "Hollywood Freaks" sort of dwindled out of the setlist. Perhaps they got tired of it, I don't know. But by the final leg of the Vultures tour, it was played at just 4 of 21 shows

The song did return for the summer of 2001 tour of Europe and Japan. One version, from June 29, ended up incorporating the "High 5" jam about jeans into it.

2002-2003 Sea Change tours

On some of Beck's solo Sea Change gigs in 2002, he dropped little bits of "Hollywood Freaks" in medleys a couple of times. But mostly, he stayed away from the song until the summer of 2003, when he had more of a rock band with him. They stuck with it fairly regularly for the rest of the summer.

2005-2007 Guero/Info tours

During the Guero and Information tours of 2005-2007, there are a number of "Hollywood Freaks." Never a main song in the set, there were around 15 performances. Some were little bits in medleys, a few were full. In 2005, there were just four versions, but in 2006-2007 behind The Information, there were a few more.

2008-2009 Modern Guilt tours / 2014 Morning Phase tours

The song was not played on the Modern Guilt tours, except once near the end of the tour in Japan, Beck adlibbed some of it during "Ghettochip Malfunction."

Similarly, the only other time Beck referenced the song since 2007 was again in "Ghettochip Malfunction," 5 years later at a show in Nashville (July 2014).

2017-2018 Colors tour

About 20 shows into the Colors tour, Beck pulled "Hollywood Freaks" out of nowhere and played it again for the first time in around 11 years. The song's return was in Charlotte in April 2018, and Beck promptly did it at the next four shows too. That first version in Charlotte, I'll add, felt a little sluggish, and not as fun as it should be (or would become later).

After April, Beck just did the song a handful of more times, twice in June, once each in July, August, and September. The arrangement is a shortened version from the record. Beck does the first two raps/choruses, but then skips over the third "Norman Schwartzkoff" verse entirely, going directly into the ending chant/outro. (And in the September version, in Hollywood, Beck skipped the outro improv, ending the song immediately.) Skipping the third verse makes the song feel slight, over way too quick, a short 2-minute Vultures break that sort of gets swamped by all the other hits of the night. Still, the band progressed on the song from the first one, as Dwayne Moore became more of a presence on the song, emphasizing the fun funk and Roger & the B-53s also have a blast with all the extra vocals.

Notes:


There are a million allusions in this song:

• The phrase Beck is shouting throughout the song is "He my nun!" Apparently, the band heard it on an Ice Cube record, and when Beck broke it out one day, it made them all laugh. It caught on. As Beck tells it, "We were listening to an Ice Cube song on the bus and he's always going 'HEEMAHNUNNN!!!!' We thought he was saying, 'He's my nun.' So on 'Hollywood Freaks,' I start the song with 'HEE-MAH-NUNNN' and you can hear a couple of the guys in the background busting up."
  
  What does it mean? Not sure, but Beck references it later in the song: "Hollywood nuns with the Hollywood phones." Clearly, the phrase isn't used literally to refer to women of a convent.
• Champagne and Ripple is a fairly potent combination. Redd Foxx—Fred Sanford of "Sanford & Son"—made it famous, calling the combo Champipple. Hehe!
• No-Doz is a pill one takes to stay awake. It can be dangerous, and is stereotypically used by truckers and students.
• "Tutti Frutti" is a famous, early rock and roll song by Little Richard.
• In the Midnite Vultures liner notes, Niagara Falls is misspelled to look, and sound like, Viagra. Whether or not this was intentional or coincidence is unknown!
• A tacoria is a quick and cheap stand that sells tacos.
• "Banging like an 808" refers to an old brand of drum machine, the 808. Beck has used it in his music before.
• Norman Schwarzkopf's name is misspelled in the liner notes. He was the US general during the Gulf War.
• "Making all those gentlemen cry realistic tears" possibly alludes to a few tracks previous, when in "Sexx Laws", Beck sings "I'm a full-grown man and I'm not afraid to cry!" He also refers to the same phrase in "Debra."
• Old Navy is a chain/ warehouse/ suburban clothing store (with annoying commercials on TV).
• The ad-libbed verse near the end contains Beck's second reference to Hyundais—the first being the old classic "Debra." This verse also recalls "Mixed Bizness" directly. The lyrics are not included in the liner notes.
• "6.2%—you fill in the blanks"? This is a reference to Gary Wilson, who rocks the most. During the February 1, 2000, performance of the song, Beck adlibs "6.2% = make out," one of Wilson's songs.