Synopsis

Devo's "Secret Agent Man" opens with the band members leaving a factory job in matching blue work clothes and clear protective masks. They travel to a small club, where their arrival leads into a frantic performance of Johnny Rivers' spy-theme song. Mark Mothersbaugh appears in the group's unsettling Booji Boy mask, while the visual style mixes industrial imagery, deadpan behavior, crude humor, and deliberately awkward stage action. The result is less a conventional performance clip than a compact statement of Devo's anti-polished, anti-pop aesthetic.

Factoids & Trivia

• The footage originated as part of Devo's early short film "The Truth About De-Evolution," made before the band had secured a major-label recording contract.

• Factory scenes were filmed at the Goodyear World of Rubber in Akron, Ohio, connecting the band's industrial imagery to its hometown environment.

• The video uses Devo's early quartet lineup, including Jim Mothersbaugh on electric bongos. He left the group before Devo's classic late-1970s lineup was established.

• Devo's version is a radical reworking of Johnny Rivers' 1966 hit. The band later recorded a substantially different version for the 1979 album "Duty Now for the Future."

• "The Truth About De-Evolution" won first prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival and was screened before Devo concerts, helping establish the group as a visual and performance-art project as much as a rock band.

• The "Secret Agent Man" segment became part of Devo's early video legacy and was later included in home-video collections such as "The Complete Truth About De-Evolution."