What does this word mean? There was a Yardbirds song titled "The Nazz Are Blue". And Todd Rundrgen had a group called The Nazz. What is nazz?
..........Not really recalling from memory cuz I was a wee child when such hipster talk was current but later reading on the period clued me in that The Nazz was 50s beatnik bohemian slang for the coolest,the neatest,the hippest ect. whatever. Was used in context to describe both things and people. Heard old albums by Lord Buckley(a beatnik rapper of some little fame) put out on the Elektra label and seem to remember his using the term if not actually having a song by that name Nazz. Specifics fail me cuz it was long,long ago and didn't make a lasting impression.
Keith Emerson had a band called the Nice, and the Small Faces had a song called "Here Comes The Nice". The Nice was Brit hipster slang for your local dope dealer. I always thought there was a secret trans-Atlantic connection between the Nice and the Nazz, but years of fruitless investigation proved me wrong. Grassy knoll. Cheers, Bruce
Good question. Ziggy was 'the Nazz, with god-given ***", or was that "hands"?, but he took it all too far.
I never heard any other explanation other than the Lord Buckley bit-a retelling of the New Testament. The Nazz refers to Jesus (of Nazareth) as "The Nazz." I don't think anyone else had thought of that phrase till Lord Buckley-which can be said for much of what came out of his wonderful mind.
Yes, the Lord Buckley/Jesus of Nazareth explanation is the one I've always heard as well. However, that still doesn't fully explain the use of the term in The Yardbirds' "The Nazz Are Blue." The song is typical of The Yardbirds' approach to blues...stealing the music from others (Elmore James's "Dust My Broom") and grafting on new words. In this case, Jeff Beck sings "I got myself a car, and the thing is painted blue" -- but there's no reference to The Nazz anywhere in the song. So was this just whimsey on The Yardbirds' part (I believe all five of them are credited with authorship), or is there some deeper significance to it?
I remember Ian Hunter used that term in "Hymn For The Dudes", I've always wondered about it's meaning, but I figured it was safe to assume it had a meaning similar to that described by rene smalldridge.
Wikipedia refers to the Lord Buckley-Jesus of Nazareth source, nothing about drug dealers or police. And nothing about Nazis, which was my first puzzled musing about Ziggy Stardust.
