Here’s a feisty little ditty to kick off the week: The definitive version of eternal boy-man Jonathan Richman’s rockin’ “Roadrunner” as performed by the original incarnation of The Modern Lovers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgRYncR1Nog

“Roadrunner (Twice)” is what happens when the Velvet Underground is cross-pollinated with Tommy James & the Shondells in the fertile pleathor bench seat of a salt-rusted Plymouth. Richman’s adenoidal warble declaims his love of Rock’ n Roll, driving the Massachusetts turnpike and AM radio while being urged on by future Talking Head Jerry Harrison’s dominant and dancing keyboards, future Car David Robinson’s hyper tom tom and cymbal-driven drumming and Ernie Brooks’ anchoring bass refrain. This cut is from the seminal LP The Modern Lovers, which was only released in 1976 on Beserkely Records, nearly 5 years after the demise of the original lineup. While Richman re-recorded the song several different ways (and later refused to play it in concert for many years) and he continued calling his backing bands “The Modern Lovers”, it’s this original version that made such a huge impression on the future of American DIY music. It packs a helluva lot of unbridled joy in its 4-minute run time and it arguably launched a multitude of geek-rockers from the Feelies to the Talking Heads to They Might Be Giants to Weezer and many more of the less-than-macho bands in the rock spectrum. In our age when nerds rule, Richman and Co. helped kick off the revolution.