Wallace, Marlin (Songs Of Divine Inspiration)

For those who know about Marlin Wallace and his group, The Corillions, no explanation is needed. For the rest of you - words won't do them justice. Just do a little research on this outsider-among-outsiders, and you'll see why.

Anyway, this mega-rare marvel (reportedly only 100 pressed) of "inspirational" songs is coveted not only for its rarity, but the music and (especially) the TRULY INSANE liner notes (see more details below). First of only two LP albums he released (the second, a double-album released in 1981 creatively entitled Double Album - no kidding! - is notorious for its deranged musicality and extensive liner notes which delve even more deeply into Wallace's paranoid-schizophrenic psyche and incredibly strange theories of red conspiracies. I have a copy, by the way, so I can vouch for this).

This album features all-original tunes (apparently he's composed thousands of them, many released on 45) of various styles ranging from country to acid-tinged folk. Almost all Christian-themed, with unsanitized, non-commercial lyrics and many with an APOCALYPTIC bent. Plus one wacky anti-war ditty ("Blood On The Hands"). Well-produced and well-played, backed by future members of The Skeletons and Dave Alvin's Guilty Men, among others; with "lead singers" under 5 different names (some or all actually Wallace himself!). Eerily compelling stuff!

The back cover, though, makes this a true TREASURE, with mug-shot inspired photo and demented liner notes. Under the heading "Red Torture", we get way too much information about the imagined sinister acts perpetrated by communist conspirators, who, among other things, secretly use lasers from satellites on Marlin's brain, genitals and other "vital" organs for mind control and pain! Yikes!!

To give you a flavor for the man and his music, here's a sampling of quotes about the enigmatic Mr. Wallace. His story is even better than Palmer Rockey's – and I couldn't make that up!

The short version, from Companion Records:

"...Let us not mince words -- this guy is out to lunch -- nuts -- bonkers -- and with a hard paranoid schitzo bent. This sounds mean but it's not -- he made great songs, some of which couldn't have been dreamed up by a sane mind. Liner notes...detail Wallace's concerns with a group of (imaginary?) communists hell-bent on...torturing him with laser beams!..."

Now the long version, from WFMU:

"Marlin Wallace is a vanity-pressing outsider-music type from Springfield, MO, but with a twist-or maybe a few. [His] songs are pretty amazing by themselves, covering such subject matter as a field encounter with a steel-fisted yeti, the voyage of Columbus, exotic and feral jungle-women, space travel, dinosaurs, ghost trains, Vietnam, and one about a mysterious, disembodied whistler....

These are surprisingly well-played and recorded, almost song-poems. If you read on, though, you'll quickly come to the meat of Marlin's Matter...he reveals: 'for over ten years I've lived under almost constant Red torture. I never know what moment of the day or night that a laser is going to hit me, causing excruciating pain'. The 'Reds' have apparently been tormenting Marlin with lasers, fired at him from satellites orbiting the Earth, since 1961. And since the lasers can 'penetrate ordinary buildings without leaving a trace', there is nothing the FBI and police can do about it...

It's amazing that Wallace ever leaves the bathroom with all these shenanigans going on, let alone crank out a couple of albums and a mind-boggling array of 7-inch singles, all with the words 'Fight Communism!' on the labels.

But prolific songwriting turns out, for Wallace, to be a double-edged sword. In a section of the liner notes to Double-Ablum called 'Communist Plagiarism', he exposes one of the Reds' dirtiest tricks - they began stealing his songs, not only from his conscious mind, but also from his unconscious mind when he was asleep. Even before thinking of a song, Wallace would hear it coming from a nearby radio or TV, pilfered from his dreams, the sneaky Commies changing 'just enough notes and words to legally get away with it'.

Further Frances Dec-like observations, set forth in sections headed 'Red Asylums' and 'The Communist Frame Job', serve to alert others potentially at risk to the fact that all mental hospitals are merely fronts for hideous Red torture dens, where 'non-conforming' Americans are routinely turned into zombies through brain surgery, poisonous injections, shock treatments, and drugs. 'Intricate mind-reading computers and subliminal control', he asserts, 'have brought a new form of mental slavery to mankind'. The Reds are now apparently able to control the dreams and thoughts of God-fearing Americans through 'outside interference and inference, in order to reprogram them to accept the evil Red doctrines - the ultimate purpose behind the Red conspiracy....

...Unfortunately, all that is known of Marlin's recent past (according to Springfield punk band/studio owners the Skeletons, in whose facility he cut a few tracks) is that he will now only record between the hours of 10 and 11 in the morning - presumably when the Communist satellite laser operators break for lunch - and he tends to remove his dentures and set them on his amp just before the red (uh oh) light goes on.

But really all we need to know about this latter-day hero-in-hell is on his albums. The music, lovingly rendered and recorded, provides a tasteful vehicle for his endearingly naive and often haunting lyrics...".

And Westworld adds:

"Sanity isn't a prerequisite when it comes to making good music. Syd Barrett and Roky Erickson are only two of many performers who've created intriguing songs in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- minds that don't operate in ways most of us regard as normal. In that sense, Marlin Wallace, a singer, musician and songwriter from Springfield, Missouri, who appears to have a rather tenuous grasp on reality, isn't unique. But in virtually every other respect, he most certainly is...

Rasslin Records' Tim Harris, corresponding via e-mail, reveals that he initially heard 'Abominable Snow Creature' and the rest of Double Album in 1998, then spent the next two years tracking down Wallace, [then] 65. Upon finding him...Harris says, Wallace "triple-razor-wire-fenced his entire property, bought a new guitar, and a phone that he doesn't answer because of the reds!' During a recent Harris visit, Wallace 'explained that cars backfiring were a way that agents were harassing him, that a passing neighbor was driving by as a form of spying and harassment, and that a song he'd heard during the World Series, Who Let the Dogs Out, was a subconscious plagiarism of two of his songs -- one about Letting the Dog Out and the other about Hoot the Owl. Wallace has penned over 900 ditties of late, so more claims of theft may be forthcoming.

Why should anyone care about music made by so delusional a personality? Harris has a fine answer: 'There is a level of past, present and future violent behavior that shines through his music, along with loneliness and rambling', he says, adding, 'I'm just glad that he continues to fight against the mind-control waves that are trying to get him to kill...".

'Nuff said.

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