The Cowboy Kim Letters

Devo's song "Big Mess" on the Oh No, It's Devo LP was inspired in-part by letters that were written to an LA office that managed local game show hosts' fan mail. Devo had some friends who worked there, and the letters got passed onto them for the sake of strangeness.

The writer of the letters referred to himself as "Cowboy Kim". I can only guess that Kim had some kind of mental handicap, and I have no idea if he was really a DJ or not.

Anyway, you can see that some of the lyrics to "Big Mess" were heavily inspired by these letters. Go find a lyric sheet for Oh No, It's Devo and compare them to these ramblings by the real-life Cowboy Kim.

Several choice sections of Kim's letters shown to the left.