Peel played this track cautiously on the show feeling that it was a record which may require a couple of listens before people would enjoy it. It hit the mark straight away for me, but I can see how the deliberately juddery production on the whole track could put some people off. If you had told me that it was recorded in Los Angeles in 1966, I would have believed you, seeming as it does to catch the vogue from that time for angular, disquieting yet enjoyable songs about mental disintegration but filtered through a stridently, catchy guitar sound and an almost militaristic beat. It sounds like an outtake from an album by Napoleon XIV of They’re Coming to Take Me Away Ha-Haa fame or an attempt to stretch the vibe of the coda to Disturbance by The Move into a full length song. However, it was recorded in 1991, possibly in Missouri where Fruitcake were based.
Due to effects on the vocals, I had initially regarded the track as being almost Wraith-like and in another era, it could have made for a novelty hit for the Halloween market as a ditty about a ghost finding its way round a home and planning exactly how it’s going to make its haunting presence felt. However, considering that it was issued as the A-side track of a 7-inch called Welcome to Saint Anthony’s Psychiatric Center, I have to lean towards the theory that what we may be hearing are the voices inside the head which drive people to creep and peep where they shouldn’t, leading them to end up in said psychiatric centre - or center if you insist. With its poppy but off-kilter atmosphere and the rising mania on the line, I’m gonna crawl beneath the wall, Creeping and Peeping ultimately feels less like a bubblegum take on a theme tune for the Ghostly Trio from Casper the Friendly Ghost, but rather more like one for Bob from Twin Peaks.
Video courtesy of FEBear1
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