Whatever Happened to Jugula

AMG Review of Whatever Happened to Jugula

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page backs Harper up on this album and earns co-billing for his trouble. The guitar interplay turns out to be the highlight of the album. Harper displays a nihilistic attitude toward everything in general and quite a few things in particular. He sings of things dire and hopeless in his thin tenor, while standard-issue folk and rock play behind him. Not that he doesn't have a sense of humor about it -- a sleeve note introduces the final song by saying, "The best thing to do with the next track is to take a hot soldering iron and pull it fairly swiftly across the track..." Given that the song features the sound of the artist urinating and that the chorus goes, "I'm really stoned," this may not be such a bad idea. A slightly different version, Jugula, was reissued in 2000.