Whip It

Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale wrote Whip It between August and October 1979. The music came from four demo tapes Casale had collected, layered into one steady time signature. The main riff took the riff of Roy Orbison's Oh, Pretty Woman and changed the ending slightly. Casale wrote the lyrics, meant to satirize American optimism, inspired by communist propaganda posters and Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow. Mothersbaugh gave a different reading: a pep talk for President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election. Many listeners assumed the song was about masturbation or sadomasochism, and the band eventually leaned into the misreading.

It was recorded at the Record Plant in Los Angeles with Robert Margouleff, on Minimoog and Prophet-5 synthesizers, with the whip cracks made on an Electrocomp 500. Warner Bros. did not expect a hit. The first single, Girl U Want, failed, but the DJ Kal Rudman programmed Whip It on stations in the southeastern US, and WBLS in New York followed. Devo had to rebook the tour into larger venues. The song entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 85 on 30 August 1980, peaked at number 14 on 15 November and spent 25 weeks on the chart. It also reached number 8 on the dance club chart and number 51 in the UK, and was certified gold in the US.

The video, made for $15,000, was based on a 1962 issue of The Dude magazine and shows Mothersbaugh whipping the clothes from a woman on a dude ranch, with the band in energy domes. MTV's heavy rotation after its 1981 launch revived the song, and the host Lily Tomlin, after watching the video, refused to host The Midnight Special unless Devo was cut. It remains Devo's only Hot 100 top 40 hit.

Pearl Jam, Love and Death and Does It Offend You, Yeah? have covered it. Devo re-recorded it for Swiffer adverts in 2005, which they have said they regretted, and a Disney-created teen pop group, Devo 2.0, recorded it in 2006.