It was July of 1966. While most of the country was humming along to the Beatles or the Beach Boys, a bizarre, frantic, and arguably disturbing track started climbing the Billboard charts. It didn’t have a melody. It didn’t have a traditional singer. Instead, it featured a man named Jerry Samuels—performing under the pseudonym Napoleon XIV—shouting a rhythmic, paranoid rant over a snare drum and a siren. They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa is one of those cultural artifacts that feels like it shouldn't exist, yet it somehow peaked at number three on the Hot 100. It’s weird. It’s loud. And if you listen to it today, it’s actually a little uncomfortable.
Honestly, the song is a masterclass in mid-century novelty production. Samuels was a recording engineer at Associated Recording Studios in New York, and he used his technical chops to do something nobody was really doing yet. He manipulated the pitch of his voice without changing the tempo. As the song progresses and the narrator gets more frantic, his voice climbs higher and higher, sounding increasingly unhinged. You’ve probably heard people try to mimic it, but the original has this specific, mechanical eeriness that’s hard to replicate.
The Accidental Pop Star and the Pitch Controller
Jerry Samuels wasn't trying to change the world. He was just a guy with a VSO (Variable Speed Oscillator) and a quirky idea. He’d been working in the industry for years, even writing "The Shelter of Your Arms" for Sammy Davis Jr., which is about as far from a novelty "madness" song as you can get. The inspiration for They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa wasn't some deep dark secret; it was actually based on an old Scottish folk tune. Samuels just added the drums and the legendary "funny farm" lyrics.
The recording process was actually pretty sophisticated for 1966. By using the VSO, he could speed up the tape while he was recording his vocals and then play it back at normal speed, or vice versa, to create that shifting pitch. It made him sound like he was losing his mind in real-time. Warner Bros. Records saw the potential and rushed it out. In just three weeks, it sold over a million copies. That’s insane. Think about that for a second: a song about being hauled off to a psychiatric ward was the third most popular song in America, right alongside "Wild Thing" by The Troggs.
Why the Song Actually Got Banned
Success didn't last. While the kids loved the rhythmic chanting and the "ha-haaa" hook, mental health advocates were less than thrilled. This was an era where the treatment of mental illness was starting to move out of the dark ages, and groups like the National Association for Mental Health (NAMH) weren't laughing. They saw the song as a cruel mockery of people suffering from genuine psychological distress.
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Radio stations started feeling the heat. WABC in New York, one of the biggest stations in the country, pulled the track from its playlist after it hit the top of their charts. Other stations followed suit. It’s one of the fastest rises and falls in music history. One week everyone is singing about "the happy home with trees and flowers and chirping birds," and the next, it’s being scrubbed from the airwaves.
There's a layer of irony here that people often miss. If you listen closely to the lyrics, the narrator isn't actually losing his mind over a person. He's yelling at a dog.
"I cooked your food, I cleaned your house, and this is how you pay me back?"
The "you" in the song is a runaway dog. Samuels thought this would make the song more "innocent" or humorous, but the manic delivery was so convincing that most people just assumed it was about a jilted lover or a total breakdown. The nuance was lost in the "ha-ha-has."
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The B-Side Nobody Could Play
If you think the A-side was weird, the B-side was literal chaos. Titled "!aaaH-aH ,yawA eM ekaT oT gnimoC er’yehT," it was literally just the A-side played entirely in reverse. Even the label on the record was printed backward. It wasn't a different song. It wasn't a remix. It was just Jerry Samuels played backward for two minutes and eight seconds.
People used to think there were hidden messages in it. There weren't. It was just a joke that fit the "crazy" theme of the record. But it added to the mystique. In the 60s, vinyl was the only way to consume this stuff, and manually spinning a record backward to see if it sounded "better" became a weird suburban pastime for bored teenagers.
A Legacy of Covers and Weirdness
You can't keep a good (or weird) song down. Over the decades, They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa has been covered by a bizarre range of artists.
- Neurotic Outsiders: A supergroup featuring members of Guns N' Roses and the Sex Pistols covered it in the 90s.
- The Lads: A Christian rock band did a version, which is... a choice.
- Kim Fowley: The legendary producer and songwriter did a version that is somehow even more unsettling than the original.
- Stone Deaf: They gave it a heavy metal makeover.
Even Dr. Demento, the king of novelty radio, kept the song alive for decades, ensuring that every new generation of "weird kids" would eventually stumble upon Napoleon XIV. Samuels himself tried to capitalize on it later with an entire album and a "sequel" told from the perspective of the dog (the dog’s name was Josephine, by the way), but lightning didn't strike twice. The sequel, "I'm Happy They Took You Away, Ha-Haaa," performed by Josephine XV, flopped.
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The Psychological Impact and Modern Context
How do we look at this song in 2026? It’s complicated. We’re much more sensitive to how mental health is portrayed in media now. To some, the song is a harmless relic of a less "PC" time. To others, it’s a triggering reminder of how society used to treat institutionalization as a punchline.
But from a purely technical standpoint, Jerry Samuels was a bit of a visionary. He understood that pop music didn't always have to be pretty. It could be jarring. It could use "found sounds" and studio manipulation to create an atmosphere. In a way, the frantic, loop-based nature of the track prefigures certain elements of industrial music and even hip-hop production styles.
It’s also worth noting that Samuels was a real person with a real career. He passed away in 2023 at the age of 84. For the rest of his life, he was the "Napoleon XIV guy." He reportedly never minded the association. He knew he’d captured a very specific, very strange moment in time.
Actionable Insights for Music Historians and Collectors
If you're looking to dive deeper into the world of 60s novelty or the history of this specific track, here’s how to do it right:
- Find the Original Mono Pressing: If you’re a vinyl collector, the mono version of the 45rpm single is the way to go. The stereo mixes of 60s novelty songs often feel "thin," but the mono version has that heavy, compressed snare drum that makes the track feel more claustrophobic.
- Listen for the Pitch Shifts: Pay attention to the points where the VSO kicks in. It’s a great example of "analog" vocal effects before digital pitch-shifting existed.
- Check Out "The Second Coming": In 1990, Samuels released a follow-up album. It’s not "good" in the traditional sense, but it shows how he tried to expand the "Napoleon XIV" universe decades later.
- Research the "Great Banning": Look into the archives of Billboard from August 1966. You can see the chart data where the song plummeted. It’s a fascinating look at how public outcry could kill a hit record before the internet existed.
The song remains a fever dream of the 1960s. It’s a reminder that pop culture has always been a little bit obsessed with the "edge" of sanity, even if it didn't always know how to handle it with grace. Whether you find it funny, annoying, or genuinely creepy, you can't deny that once you hear that "Ha-Haaa," it's stuck in your head for the rest of the day.