This song was released on the album “Black Gladiator,” Bo Diddley’s bid for relevance in the 1970s. It’s an extremely interesting album that takes familiar blues guitar licks and structure and filters them through the prominent trends in rock and funk music at the time. This includes the famous Bo Diddley guitar riff being enveloped in rock organ.
The standout track on this incredibly singular album in my opinion is “Elephant Man.”
This song features blues licks played with muscular,loud electric guitar. The powerful guitar attack is backed by flowery rock organ and a loose, smooth bass line.
The songs lyrics explain how Bo Diddley literally is responsible for the creation of the elephant. Not a sculpture of an elephant but the actual animal. Toward the end of the song Bo’s singing devolves into gruff wails, and the song jams on.
It’s definitely worth listening to the song just based on its craziness alone, but musically it’s also a tight blues number dialed up to 11.
The Ear Regular 