Auto Modown

Song Name:  Auto Modown AKA "Auto Mo-down"

Released Versions:

⸰ "Auto Mowdown" (2:01) - Hardcore DEVO Vol. 1, 74-77

⸰ "Auto Modown [Early Version]" (2:09) - Art Devo 1973-1977

Year Recorded: 1975^[3] (HARDCORE version. Art Devo version undated.)

Years Performed:  1975, 2014 ^{setlist.fm stats}

Writing Credits: Gerald V. Casale

Sung By: Gerald V. Casale

Personnel:

1975:

Gerald V. Casale - electric bass, vocals

Mark Mothersbaugh - electric keyboards (*officially released version)

Bob Mothersbaugh - electric guitar

Jim Mothersbaugh - electric drums

2014: Jerry, Mark, Bob 1, Josh. (HARD CORE TOUR 2014)

Alternate Versions: Originated as a "blues jam" with Gerald V. Casale and "a Kent, Ohio friend." By 1972 it was recorded.

Demo Versions:

• Official release is credited as a 1975 demo.
• Officially unreleased demo alternate take, circa May 1974. YouTube
• An unreleased demo was reportedly recorded in 1971 on a Teac 4-track recorder and was pressed to acetate in 1972.

Trivia / Info:

• This is one of the oldest G.V.C. compositions recorded by DEVO.
• "Auto Modown" premiered online as a limited time digital stream within a Rolling Stone article about the re-release of Hardcore Vol.1 and 2.
  In that article G.V. Casale says it "started as a blues jam I wrote and played with a Kent, Ohio friend."

• The subject matter comes from a newspaper article about a traffic accident in Ohio. The tragic event was reported by wire service to several newspapers. It was (initially) the featured article on the front page of Ohio papers including the Youngstown Vindicator and the Akron Beacon Journal.
• The news agency article used by the Beacon Journal contains phrases referenced in this song's lyrics:
  ⸰ The lyrics "bodies with no shoes" refer to the victim's shoes being knocked off by the force of the impact, reported as: "There were several pairs of empty shoes that people had been knocked out of."
  ⸰ "Auto Modown" references: ‘A policeman said the auto "mowed people down like grass".’[4]
  Massacres are described with the phrase "mowed people down."

⸰ "...A sidewalk run in the noonday sun" refers to: "There were bodies all over the sidewalk", and "A runaway car plowed 500 feet through a noon hour crowd".

• Other news printed on the same day:

⸰ The final edition of that day's Beacon Journal reduced the Youngstown car massacre news to a small front page column, below the fold, and instead featured an article above the Akron Beacon Journal masthead, 8 columns wide:‘LSD, Not Police Bullets, Killed My Son’.

⸰ “Kent State Revisited: An Appeal for Justice”, A Special Supplement, American Report: Review Of Religion And American Power, Vol. II, No. 7, (1971, November 12), pp1-S to 24-S

⸰ Ohio newspapers also included articles covering the previous day's Veterans Day parades favorable to military activity.

⋅ One year earlier was the Kent State Massacre in Kent, Ohio.

⋅ Three years earlier was the My Lai Massacre, referenced in "My Lai Mama", which also shares lyrics with "Auto Modown".

• A never-released proto-Devo acetate from 1972 includes this song, as performed by Gerald Casale (bass), Peter Gregg (guitar), and Bob Lewis (slide guitar).
• The 1974 recordings feature Jim Mothersbaugh on drums. (Mark plays an audio effect, starting at 24 seconds into the song, that was later used many times as a well-known sound effect. This sound sample matches the demo that was released as a bootleg in ‘79 and as an official release in ‘90.)
• The alternate take from May 1974 features a more synthetic and primitive-sounding audio effect, and due to the loose performance, comes in earlier in the song.
• Performed live on 04/04/75 at University Auditorium, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio. The John Waters film "Pink Flamingos" was shown twice this night. DEVO performed a set before both showings.
  
• Bob and Jerry performed “Auto Modown” with members of the Spudboys at the 2017 Devotional.

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The "Auto Modown" demo features a sound repeatedly played starting at 0:24".

This sound - slowed down - is used in Transformers transformation sequences.   (YouTube).

The sound was part of the music track in the TV commercial for the Marvel comic book series before being used as the transformers transform sound effect in the subsequent TV series.

The composer, or a sound effects technician, may have incorporated a Harald Bode sound effect from an R.A. Moog Modular synth into the commercial music track.

(Devo fan Thomas Dolby scored commercials - like the Honda commercials that debuted in April 1984 - but there is no proof Devo played then unreleased “Auto Modown” for a composer or a sound effects technician and there is no way to contact them. Johnny Douglas composed the original music used in the pilot miniseries.)

The “Auto-Modown” demo tape recording can be heard on the 1979 “Devonia” bootleg LP. and on the 1990 official "hardcore" issue.

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Lyrics:

     auto mo-down
      
     down in Youngstown
      
     bodies in the street
      

     auto mowdown
      
     noon in downtown
      
     bodies with no feet
      
     
     auto mowdown
      
     down in Youngstown
      
     bodies got de'blues
      

     auto mowdown
      
     noon in downtown
      
     bodies with no shoes
      

     an acid head goon
      
     in a '55 Dodge
      
     didn't mean to do it
      

     but a sidewalk run
      
     in the noonday sun
     
     ten to one, he had to lose it
      

Song Reviews:

⸰ ‘Influences such as Captain Beefheart, Robert Johnson and Frank Zappa combined and devolved into the earliest DEVO songs (prior to any involvement from the Mothersbaugh family) such as “I Need a Chick,” “Be Stiff” and “Auto Modown,” all of which can be found on the Hardcore DEVO demo compilations (Warmowski).’ - Jade McDougall (2013)

⸰ ‘...Concise slab of weirdo-funk that is “Auto Modown”...’ - Joseph Neff (2013)

⸰ “Auto Modown” is a serrated blues-rock number — much of the Hardcore material finds the band borrowing blues structures and rhythms — but with synthesizers barking over what becomes a satisfying groove.” - Port, Ian S. (2014)

⸰ “...The punchy “I’m a Potato” and Residents-like ‘Auto Modown” both could have made the cut for the debut.” - madnest: music under review (2014)

⸰ “...Driving blues of “Auto Modown”’ - Keirda Baruth (2015)

⸰ “‘...Auto Modown’ is an incomplete-sounding two minutes of factory-rigid Booji blues boogie...” - Noel Gardner (2015)

⸰ “Auto Modown: Here's a really great example of lo-fi, swaggery guitar riffing. Thank you, Devo, for this funky mess.” - Nate Mendel (2015)

⸰ DEVO: Mechanical Man [EP], User Reviews, albumoftheyear.org:
⋅ "Auto-Modown ~ ★★★★☆" - The Araby Bazaar (QueenOfDenmark) (2024)
⋅ "Auto-Modown - 80" - sandpaperherpes (2024)

⸰ “Hardcore Vol. 1 Best: I’m A Potato Worst: Auto Modown (the guitar actually hurts my ears)” - mrenderkid (2024)

⸰ “I love the Auto Mowdown riff.” - DevolvedSpud (2024)

⸰ "Auto Modown and Social Fools clicked with my ape brain like no other." - initcursor (2025)

Spelling / Orthography:

• Although every version of the song title starts with the abbreviation “auto”, different sources present different spellings of the phrase "mow down" in the title and lyrics of this song, including modown, mo-down, mowdown, and mow down.

⸰ “Auto Modown (Early version)” • Art Devo 1973-1977 [Box Set]

⸰ “AUTO-MODOWN” • “bootleg” Mechanical Man EP, and some bootleg compilations.

⸰ “AUTO MODOWN” • HARDCORE VOL. 1, HARDCORE DEVO LIVE!, and most cover versions.

⸰ “Auto Mo-Down” • HARDCORE DEVO TOUR set list.

Links:

Auto Modown (releases) MusicBrainz

Auto Modown (overview) AllMusic

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The cop on the scene was quoted using the phrase "mowed people down".

This phrase has been used to describe massacres and mass deaths occurring in most every country around the world:

⸰ Government troops mowed people down as they fled their villages. “They shot women in the back because they fed the guerrillas. They shot children, too.”

⸰ “The Chinese autocracy is no joke, nor is it just an academic idea harbored by historians. It is still with us, as you would expect after its 3500 years of development. It has mowed people down within recent memory and could do so again.”

⸰ “The tanks mowed people down.”

⸰ ‘It was the 27th that spearheaded the charge on Tiananmen Square; it attacked so viciously that its armored vehicles raced through a band of soldiers to get at the civilian protesters. "The 27th Army is known for its mindless loyalty," said a Western military attache in Beijing. "They just mowed people down, including other troops".’

⸰ “The Japanese simply mowed people down in the corridors and rooms. Men, women and children were all killed.”

⸰ “When persuasion failed, the Swedes used force. All over Novgorod territory riflemen mowed people down.”

⸰ “...On election day, they mowed people down in the streets.”

⸰ The Tatars "mowed people down like grass" (Татары «косили людей, как траву»).

⸰ “Shouting war cries and firing their guns wildly, Villa’s men mowed people down, looted stores, and burned houses.

⸰“On the third day of the genocide, as bodies lay heaped at checkpoints in Kigali and machete-wielding militiamen mowed people down like weeds, the international community finally reacted.”

⸰ “The news he told was that Stanley had arrived with a marvellous machine gun, which mowed people down by hundreds...”

⸰ “...Machine guns mowed people down at random.”

⸰ Illnesses such as smallpox and measles mowed people down by the tens of thousands. Malaria, typhus, cholera, and tuberculosis were silent killers that spread from tribe to tribe.

⸰The plague is a filth disease, which mowed people down in Western Europe, at a time when conditions there were fully as filthy as they are today in some overcrowded cities..."

⸰ “Death mowed people down by the hundreds, and it was difficult to distinguish the living from the dead, the healthy from the sick.”

⸰ “Death from dystrophy, dysentery, tuberculosis, and jaundice mowed people down mercilessly.”