"OH GOD, IT'S HORRIBLE"
It doesn't matter what you do
It doesn't matter what you say
There will always be
One who wants things the opposite way
It doesn't matter where you go
It doesn't matter who you see
There will always be
Someone who disagrees
We do our best
We try to please
But we're like the rest
We are never at ease
That wisdom could come from anyone who feels the malaise and discontent so abundant in the world today. But that philosophical nugget came from a trio of sisters once described as "lobotomized Trapp Family singers." Sisters Dot, Betty, Helen, and (sometimes) Rachel Wiggin formed a band at the behest of their domineering father. Their lyrics lamented a lack of straight hair and distress at missing their runaway cat. With dischords and discontentment The Shaggs became, to the music elite, avant-garde provocateurs with one locally pressed and poorly distributed album. But the sisters do not miss the limelight they never really stood in.
Austin Wiggin, father and mama's boy, was a mill hand by trade. Described as "humorless" and "unsmiling" he coerced his teenage daughters into forming a band. Why? Because his mommy said so. Austin Wiggin's mother read his palm and predicted :
1 - he would marry a strawberry blonde woman
2 - he would have two sons after his mother's death
3 - his daughters would form a "popular" band
Well, two out of three ain't bad, but in desperation or grief, or a potent mix of the two, Austin foisted lead guitar on Dot, rhythm guitar on Betty, and drums on Helen. He beseeched them to write lyrics, which honestly, read like what you write on the essay portion of a test you haven't studied for. Dot thought their father was "nuts" but the girls respected their grandmother enough to go along with Austin's cockamame notion. Austin pulled the girls from school and put them on a strict regiment of exercise and practice. They weren't allowed to socialize with anyone their age. The girls dreamed about getting in the car and driving away.
He dubbed them The Shaggs after a popular 1960s hairstyle. Ironically, the sisters all sported long hair, not a shag in sight. Also not part of the act - actual musical talent. Missing as well - the desire to possess musical talent. Austin booked the girls to play the local Town Hall every weekend. And the rock and roll loving teens of Fremont, New Hampshire? They threw "junk" at the girls on stage and bullied them at school.
The sisters were embarrassed about performing. But did Dad care? Yeah, no. In March of 1969 Austin took the girls to Revere, Massachusetts to record at Fleetwood Studios. What rock legends recorded there? School marching bands! (And some local rock groups.) An engineer described the girls as looking "miserable" and after they left the staff laughed at them. They recorded the album in a day and Austin payed for 1,000 copies to be pressed. The liner notes said The Shaggs "love making music" and they are "real, unaffected by outside influences." Well that's true enough given that Austin did not allow them to socialize.
Philosophy of the World was "released" in 1969. Just to put things in perspective in 1969 : The Allman Brothers Band, Badfinger, Blind Faith, The Carpenters, Hall & Oates, Humble Pie, Judas Priest, Kraftwerk, Little Feat, Mott the Hoople, Seals & Crofts, Sha Na Na, Supertramp, Thin Lizzy, Uriah Heep, War, and ZZ Top all formed. Some of those bands only had one hit song but those songs are all time classics. John Oates gave the world mustache glory, and ZZ Top taught us all to like girls with legs. The Archies' Sugar Sugar was a number one hit that year and "you are my candy girl, and you got me wanting you" was a better lyric than The Shaggs' "oh Foot Foot. I wish I could find you. I've looked here. I've looked there. I've looked everywhere." Keep in mind The Shaggs = real life humans. The Archies = cartoon characters. And note Sha Na Na were pals with Jimi Hendrix, performed at Woodstock, and had a TV show for four seasons.
Only 100 copies of Philosophy of the World were delivered to Austin. 900 were kept back because according to Austin, he didn't want The Shaggs music and style to be copied. A music executive, Harry Palmer, wanted to promote the girls but after seeing the derision their lives shows drew he thought that promoting them might actually be an act of cruelty. By 1973 the town denied Austin permission to hold live shows in the town hall. Helen revealed her secret marriage and left home. Austin took the girls to record a second album, but even improved they were still bad. A technician played back the recording and The Shaggs, still musically uneducated, could not recognize their instruments needed tuning and their timing is disjointed. The album was not released. The death knell for The Shaggs tolled - off key - when Austin died of a heart attack at age 47 in 1975. In time Betty and Dot married, and their mother sold the family house. The new owners swore Austin's ghost haunted the place and they donated the house to the town fire department, who burned it down in a firefighting demo.
But from the ashes came a revival in the 1980s when those in music circles distribute The Shaggs first album amongst each other. Bonnie Raitt and Frank Zappa claim fandom. Zappa allegedly proclaimed The Shaggs "better than The Beatles." By the 1990s Kurt Cobain called The Shaggs his favorite band ; "Here we are now. Entertain us" indeed. Susan Orlean profiled The Shaggs in The New Yorker. Dot said she doesn't feel sentimental about her time as a musician and won't listen to their music. Betty summed it all up by saying "oh God it's horrible." Tom Cruise (?!) optioned the articles' film rights. (no film was ever made.)
By 1999 Helen was living on disability for depression. Dot and Betty worked blue collar jobs (Wikipedia does not include Rachel.) In 2011 a musical Philosophy of the World debuted and was critiqued as "quirky but dreary." I have found my epitaph! Helen died in 2006. Various reunion and tribute opportunities cropped up in the '00s and '10s with Dot and Betty taking part, not for the love of music, but for the opportunity to collect royalties and fees.
I want to clarify my stance on The Shaggs. I may have seemed harsh when I quoted their lyrics and compared them to a cartoon band. I have no animosity toward them. I know people saying they dig The Shaggs mean well, but I feel the girls are used as cache currency ; saying you like The Shaggs gives you cool, makes you seem hipper than hip. But fans never seem to mention the mental, physical, and according to one of the sisters, sexual abuse they suffered because their possibly mentally ill father wanted to make a palm reading true. Just let that sink in for a minute or two. He wasn't a cash grabber like Tiffany's mom. He didn't want to live vicariously through his kids like Mama Rose. He wanted to make a palm reading come true. He exposed his daughters to ridicule by adults and their peers. He pulled them out of school and then expected them to be lyricists. Dot, Betty, Helen, you deserved better. You were smart enough to know that you would never be better than The Beatles. And you didn't want to be.
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