Robert Gordon – Flying Saucer Rock And Roll 

I wanted to get a rockabilly post in before the new year got any older, and Robert Gordon is a great place to start! He did rockabilly proud as he stuck to the roots while also sharing his unique style in the songs.

Gordon released his debut album (Robert Gordon with Link Wray) in 1977. This song is on that album. Everyone thought he would be huge. His producer was Richard Gottehrer, and he helped launch the careers of Madonna, Blondie, The Ramones, and The Talking Heads. Gordon paved the way for future rockabilly acts like The Stray Cats, which emerged in the 1980s. He also shone a much-needed light on the legendary guitarist Link Wray. He saw Wray playing the oldies circuit and convinced Wray to play guitar with him.

Much like The Yardbirds and John Mayall, Gordon had a knack for picking great guitar players to play with him. Chris Spedding (a versatile session guitarist), Danny Gatton (toured with Roger Miller and others), Eddie Angel, Quentin Jones, and, most recently, Danny B. Harvey. Gordon’s 2020 album Rockabilly For Life had players such as Albert Lee, Steve Wariner, and the great Steve Cropper.

This song was written by Ray Scott and first recorded by Billy Riley and His Little Green Men (Love that name) in 1957.  Others have covered this song like The Flamin’ Groovies, The Box Tops, and many others. This was on Gordon’s debut album, and it rocks! For a music fan, it’s pure entertainment.

From 1977 to 2022, he made 12 studio albums and 4 live albums. Gordon died in 2022 of acute myeloid leukemia.

Flying saucers Rock & Roll

Well, the news of the saucer been a-flyin’ around
I’m the only one that seen it on the ground
First thing I seen when I saw it land
Cats jumped out and they formed a band

Flyin’ saucer rock and roll, flyin’ saucer rock and roll
I couldn’t understand the things they said
But that crazy beat just a stopped me dead

Well the little green men, they were real hep-cats
Rockin’ and rollin’ doin’ their crazy flats
They brought out a sax and they started to blow
They brought out the drums and they started to roll

Well, I come out a-hidin’ and I started to rock
Little green men tought me how to do the bop
They were three foot high, hit a few bars
Started rock and roll al the way from mars

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

62 thoughts on “Robert Gordon – Flying Saucer Rock And Roll ”

  1. I hadn’t really thought of flying saucer rock ‘n’ roll as a genre, but I guess there was a UFO obsession in the late 50s. We also had “The Purple People Eater” (1958) and “They Flying Saucer” (1956). And the Frisbee was first known as the Pluto Platter (1955). (I wonder what mine would be worth if I still had it.)

    I didn’t really know Link Wray in the 50s – his appearance with Robert Gordon was my intro to him. But I’ve since found footage of him playing with John Cipollina of Quicksilver, thanks to you.

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    1. I would guess, but you lived it, it had something to do with the atomic age during the fifties? Just my guess but you are right…not only songs but all of the space movies out at the time as well.

      There are two guitarists that I’ve really come to know more in recent years…Link Wray and Jesse Ed Davis…two I knew nothing about earlier. I like both of them…and you have reminded me…I need to do another Quiksilver post…

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      1. I think you’re right. The fear of nuclear annihilation (funny, I talked about that today in my post on Timbuk3) may have been connected to the fear of annihilation by aliens. We felt equally out of control with both scenarios. Ducking and covering was equally worthless for both. Then there’s the third scenario of aliens trying to save us from our own stupidity with The Day the Earth Stood Still.

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      2. I’m watching a show right now based in the late fifties and early sixties and they are showing “Bert The Turtle” at schools handing out duck and cover brochures. Yea…about as helpful as getting under your desk.
        I guess Sputnik also fueled a lot of it as well.

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    2. Yes, the official way to preserve yourself was to crawl under your desk, move into the foetal (fatal?) position and let a combination of knotty pine and a 1/2 inch piece of plywood save you from a 50 megaton explosive blast of blinding incineration. Who said a school education based on physics and chemistry was wasted?

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      3. When I was in 5th grade (1972), they were still having air raid drills, and we had to go out in the hall, kneel in front of the lockers with our hands over our heads. And they were really old lockers.

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      5. The funny thing is that I went to Catholic school for the first four grades, and we never had anything of the sort. Never had an air raid drills until I went to Public school.

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      6. Well I guess you were safer there! That is odd though all joking aside. It must have been a government thing to do that for public schools. But…in the late seventies I remember it changed…it was for tornados then…THAT I could understand.

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  2. Pingback: Robert Gordon – Flying Saucer Rock And Roll  – MobsterTiger

  4. Fun video but the timing was way, way off if he wanted to score a hit record. There was no market at all for rockabilly in ’77- the prime of disco, yacht rock here, punk in Britain and big album rock groups growing to gigantic scales. Five or six years later it turns out, it might have had a shot

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    1. Yea so many were overlooked at the time because of the time period. He developed a following because I guess there were people back then who didn’t want to hear what was on the radio…. he never was big on the charts but his shows drew people and other musicians loved him.

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  7. Such a fun song I had not known – thanks for the intro! I also have to agree Billy Riley and His Little Green Men was a great name. Not to hit on Bill Haley, but Bill Haley and his Comets sounded a bit lame by comparison. And, just to be clear, I’ve always dug Bill Haley! 🙂

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  8. Great tune!! Been a Robert Gordon fan right from the get go. Even still I always learn something new from you. Teaming up with Link was brilliant. I agree with Dave that timing was a bit off. We all know Rockabilly is very niche and even the very popular artists move on to other styles. The Stray Cats caught lightning in a bottle but I can’t think of another example since the early days of the genre.
    Think maybe next in line are Reverand Horton Heat and most certainly The Basters in terms of success but never got the sort of household name status like the Stray Cats. But I very much would have liked to see him have more success. He’s on my deeply regret not seeing them list. No secret to you that Springsteen certainly saw his potential when he gave him “Fire” and let him release it first. That flame was quickly extinguished and I wonder if that was his moment that came and went.

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    1. Thank you for the kind words. I never heard of Gordon until a few years ago. I really like what I’ve heard. Reverand Horton Heat….I have loved for 20 years and I don’t post enough of him.

      The Stray Cats just hit the right time and place I think. That was odd of them hitting that big during the time of “Bette Davis Eyes”…but I loved it don’t get me wrong. Yep I wish Fire would have done better for him when he covered it. Success…Randy I’ve seen through history where it is nearly impossible to predict or to replicate. I don’t understand it at all. The Blasters to me should have been THE one out of all of these but nope. I do know that musicians loved Gordon…and yes…getting Link Wray was brilliant!

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  10. I was just sitting here eating Captain Crunch thinking “It would be cool if Max would post another Robert Gordon tune” Lo and behold. A classic. I wore this record out. Had a friend who would go nuts for the first cut on the album. He actually knew the original.

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      1. Very cool that you’re sticking with your rockabilly. Like my music listening habits I have to mix it in regularly. I wore those first couple Gordon albums out plus the following ones. I was just listening to a hard driving later Gordo cut I was going to send you. ‘Please Give Me Something’. You beat me to the punch.

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  11. Those paranoid 50s NEEDED rock’n’roll as a release from all that white shirt and tie buttoned down grey flannel suited angst about Korea and creeping Communism (according to creeps like Joseph McCarthy,) them Ruskies getting the A bomb, then putting dogs up into space etc etc. No wonder there was room to worry about the state of this world AND otherworldly little green men. It must have been fun to put all that worry in the back of your mind and dance dance dance.

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      1. IMO the counterculture was rooted in the worriesome 50s. People looked at all the building problems and no wonder they wanted to tune out, turn on and lose your worries in a smokey haze.

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  13. He certainly lived the music. I have a cheap live CD of his that I found on a bargain rack for a couple of bucks many years ago. I had heard his name, that’s all. I have to confess at the time I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Maybe it was a put-on, maybe not. Now I see how committed he was to the style. I must look into some more of him.

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      1. I was trying to remember what it was (I’m not home right now), I looked at images of CDs on Google, and it just says Robert Gordon Live and he’s wearing what looks like a leopard print smoking jacket. I think Discogs had it.

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      3. Yes I think I know the one. Maybe a bootleg that came out later. Chris Spedding on cover with him. He was as hot as he was going to get then. Slice of great rock n roll history in my book. I would have caught that tour Great stuff M. Y.

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      11. No problem Max. Thanks for posting. Gordon was a backlash to the music of that time. There were at lot of people listening. Boss for one. We were in good company. You can really hear the Blasters and his bands similarities from the record M.Y. has.

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      12. Thats what I told someone today without saying it. He wasn’t chasing trends…he was doing what he loved and you can tell. Yes…the Blasters. The more I hear them the more confused I get on why they weren’t on the radio more…awesome music CB.

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