Chevy Chase’s Lost 1980 Comedy Album Is Streaming Online

Admit it, you’ve always wanted to hear Chevy Chase rap. Yes, Chevy Chase released a musical comedy album back in 1980, and the self-titled record is available streaming in its entirety below, thanks to Archive.org. Believe it or not, the album’s not great, and Chevy Chase’s biggest contribution to music is still that song he plays on the keys when trying to woo Judge Smails’s niece in Caddyshack.

The album is embedded in its entirety after jump:

Track Listing1. Nat’l Anthem2. Short People3. Never Never Gonna Sing For You4. I Shot the Sheriff5. Let It Be6. Love to Have My Baby7. Sixteen Tons8. Wild Thing9. Rappers’ Plight

There are a few stand-out tracks (or at least ones that stand above the rest of the musical parodies recorded here), like Chase’s take on “I Shot the Sheriff” and “Never Never Gonna Sing for You,” a riff on Barry White. Aside from that, the tracks are pretty rough, like his chipmunk-voiced cover of “Let It Be,” hip hop track “Rapper’s Plight,” and parody of Randy Newman’s “Short People,” which was already a novelty song and therefore a weird subject for spoofing to begin with.

You can’t blame Chevy Chase for wanting to cut an album in 1980, in the wake of his peers like Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi (as the Blues Brothers) making waves in the record industry. Though the record doesn’t really suggest it, Chase has a background in music. He has perfect pitch, drummed for future Steely Dan founders Walt Becker and Donald Fagen in a college jazz outfit, and played in a band called Chamaeleon Church that cut one record MGM in 1969 and quickly broke up. Despite his musical background, Chevy Chase’s self-titled record debut (and swan song) fails to reach anywhere near the heights of his SNL buddies’ late 70s/early 80s album efforts.

Chevy Chase’s Lost 1980 Comedy Album Is Streaming […]