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Private Idaho
The B-52's
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- Album
- Wild Planet
- Released
- 1980
- Genres
- new wave, post-punk
- Length
- 3:36
- Tempo
- 166 BPM
- Label
- Warner Records
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About this song
The B-52's had never performed in Idaho when the song was written, and they did not play there until a show in Eagle, ID, on September 13, 2011. Fred Schneider told the Idaho Statesman around that concert that Idaho seemed mysterious to the band and that the song is not a parody of the state.
What it's about
The song uses Idaho as a metaphor for a state of mind, in which a person avoids pleasure out of baseless fear and shuns human contact out of baseless suspicion. The band chose the state partly because its population was under 1 million in 1980, making it easy to live isolated from others, which is the idea of one's own "Private Idaho."
Fun facts
- Sampled in 1 other song, like “1980 by The Hood Internet”.
- Covered 2 times, including “Private Idaho (Música de Brinquedo, a Série) by Pato Fu”.
- Written by Ricky Wilson (The B-52's), Kate Pierson, Cindy Wilson, Keith Strickland and Fred Schneider.
- Produced by The B-52's and Rhett Davies.
- Recorded at Compass Point Studios (Nassau.