Hocus Pocus

"Hocus Pocus" opens Moving Waves, 6:42 on the album and 3:18 as a single edit, written by van Leer and Akkerman and produced by Mike Vernon. It is a rondo alternating a rock riff with short drum solos and solo verses of yodel, organ, accordion, scat, flute and whistling. Wikipedia says it was written as a rock parody to give the album a rock track, and Akkerman told NME in May 1973 that it was just a send-up of those rock groups. The origin accounts differ: in a 2021 interview van Leer said Akkerman began the opening lick, van der Linden joined with a drum solo, and he started yodeling behind his organ for the first time in his life; in a 2007 interview, reported only in a search summary, he placed it at a castle gig shortly before leaving to record in England; and Akkerman has described it as born from a jam.

The Dutch single came out in June 1971 with "Janis" on the B-side, reaching number ten in the Dutch Top 40 (some sources say 12), the UK single in October 1971 on Polydor, and the US and Canadian single in February 1973 on Sire. "Hocus Pocus II", a faster 1972 re-recording with funk elements, 3:25, was the B-side of the North American single and reached number nine in the Netherlands. The original reached number 20 in the UK in late January 1973, nine on the US Hot 100, four on Cash Box, 18 in Canada and 15 in Australia; a 2010 re-entry reached 57 in the UK. The Old Grey Whistle Test performance in December 1972 helped revive it, and they played it on The Midnight Special on October 5, 1973.

Covers include The Vandals (1984), Gary Hoey (1993), Vanessa-Mae (1997), Helloween (1999) and Iron Maiden (2006, on the DVD single of "Different World"), and J. Cole sampled it on "Blow Up" (2010). It was used in a Nike World Cup advertisement in 2010, in Baby Driver (2017), in RoboCop (2014) and in Top Gear, and American Songwriter ranked it the weirdest song of all time in 2024. Which version our upload is has not been established.