"You'll Need Somebody on Your Bond" (later titled "You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond") is a gospel song that is attributed to both tradition and to gospel blues musician Blind Willie Johnson. Under the name "You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond", the Deviants included this song on their final studio album (or at least the last one released before the death of bandleader Mick Farren), Dr. Crow (2002). (More from Wikipedia)
I was scanning the song list on It's My Way! and spotted another song that came up in a different context: "You're Going to Need Somebody on Your Bond". As with every song on It's My Way! but one, the songwriter was listed as Buffy Sainte-Marie on the Allmusic listing for the album. I actually said out loud when I saw that: "Really?!" – where I remembered it was on the most recent album by the psychedelic hard rock band the Deviants, Dr. Crow.
I don't remember thinking consciously that "You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond" – the way the song was shown on the Deviants album – didn't sound like a song that Buffy Sainte-Marie would have written, but it really didn't. For that matter, it didn't sound like a song that the Deviants would have written either. "You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond" sounded like an old-time blues number, with a strong-throated black background singer doing a duet with Deviants frontman Mick Farren.
But it turns out I was wrong about that: The singer in the duet (who is quite white) is actually the lead vocalist for the alternative rock band Concrete Blonde, Johnette Napolitano. Napolitano and another member of Concrete Blonde, Jim Mankey actually contributed quite a bit to the Dr. Crow album: Johnette Napolitano is one of the background singers on the album called the Deviettes – along with Blare N. Bitch of Betty Blowtorch – and Jim Mankey played bass on their version of the Beatles' classic "Strawberry Fields Forever".
On one of my Atlanta shopping trips to the Criminal Records store, I found one of the most delightful albums I have purchased in the past five years: a collection of early 1980's punk rock simply called The D.I.Y. Album. (The album is described as using the "Han-O-Disc" recording process, whatever that means). On it is the first known song by the band that later became Concrete Blonde: "Heart Attack" by Dreamers. This song was made even before they took the name Dream 6 in 1982. Johnette Napolitano's reedy but compelling vocal on "Heart Attack" could hardly sound more different from the way it is on the Deviants' version of "You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond". As a result of these two recordings, I have gained a whole new respect for Concrete Blonde and Johnette Napolitano.
Mainly on the strength of this Dreamers recording (though there are other terrific songs as well, including an early song by Black Flag), The D.I.Y. Album brought $50 at auction on eBay in 2006 (I paid maybe half that much myself!), according to popsike.com – a great resource if you are interested in what original vinyl recordings have been bringing at auction and in private sales.
Anyway, the liner notes on Dr. Crow gave an unusual level of detail about "You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond": "New words and music by Mick Farren and Andy Colquhoun to the original by Blind Willie Johnson". Andy Colquhoun is a past UARA and long-time member of the Deviants.
