Roky Erickson

Back in November of 2024 I posted a series of blogs on 60s psychedelic group the 13th Floor Elevators, where I got into the various aspects of the band - mostly having to do with associated occult imagery and themes - as well as personalities involved and the larger agenda that may have surrounded them. But I really didn't get into Roky Erickson's life too deeply, because I discovered what seems to be a painfully candid auto-biographical spoken-word poem called "I know the Hole in Baby's Head" [IKTHIBH]. And so rather than try and pick a way to adequitely cover the enigmatic Roky in my own words, I just created a transcript of that poem [read in his own voice on the video version] set to a backdrop of various pictures relating to his past. I was hoping that people would put the 2 together and find a deeper meaning in it all, as I did.

Part of what makes IKTHIBH so hard to shake off is the visual impact of an actual mental facility, Austin State Hospital specifically - where Erikson periodically checked in when his condition became too overbearing during the mid 1980s. We’re told the footage was taken by Douglas Mobley, a friend, and that Roky was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at this point.

Although aspects of "IKTHIBH" sound like they might be metaphorical, the vast majority comes off like a frank, sober confession - as if with a gun to the head. It’s really only the title itself which comes off as potentially allegorical. And yet, it’s suggestive enough to add a very specific and gruesome visual supplement to the lines leading up to it. Here are the lines I am referring to:

Do you think they had killed someone?…successfully together killed someone?…I went and thought they had killed someone…I went and thought that they had killed someone. And then I thought they had killed this someone, then I thought how had they killed this someone? Who was this someone they killed?…Then I reached and thought I snapped that they had killed one of my brothers, or sisters. One of the many, one of the babies. One of the many, one of the babies. One of the many. One of the many. One of the many. I thought they had killed one of the kids. One of the babies. They had…killed…one of the kids. They had uh…killed the kid…They had killed a kid.

[An "art piece" Roky's mom put together. The center mask is supposed to represent her, the others represent the 5 sons.]

Given his loyal following and cult icon status, I was surprised to find little dialogue online attempting to interpret what the above quote from Roky’s poem is trying to convey. Then again, it’s pretty clear isn’t it? I mean, how many different ways does he have to say “they killed a child” before we begin to wonder if he's being literal, and not metaphorical or just having some sort of "episode?"

The images I included in the aforementioned blog were mostly taken from the documentary “You’re Gonna Miss Me”, in order to compliment - and in some cases demonstrate that what Roky says in that "poem" is largely auto-biographical. Let’s take a look at how these images compliment the dark narrative found in IKTKIBH.

[Roger Kynard Erickson, born in July of 1947.]

After stating the decidedly morbid and cryptic title 4 times, Roky starts telling a story by putting himself back into the Erickson family home, as a boy version of himself, and describes what he sees and experiences to us.

Hastily, he matter-of-factly recalls a bunch of kids crawling around like wild, largely neglected animals in a big cage stricken with poverty. He mentions “lots of brothers and sisters,” which is strange since Roky didn’t have any sisters we know of. Perhaps he had a sister we don’t know about or perhaps the words just rolled off his tongue in a stream of consciousness sort of way without total regard for accuracy?

The heartbreaking scene continues to spill out in a steady stream. Angry parents fighting while the kids and mother scream and cry amidst decrepit surroundings, dark and cold, due to an unpaid electrical bill apparently. Again, little details like the latter don't sound very metaphorical...

This image of young Evelyn Elaine Kynard is posted on a wall in what appears to be her living quarters at the time of filming the 2005 documentary on Roky. We quickly come to know the eccentric, aging artist known as Roky’s mother. It would appear that she started creating some kind of visual storyboard outlining what she believes are the important things people should know about her and her eldest son. This was done, I presume, in anticipation of the documentary.

The above confirms a few key things: Evelyn, a musician/performer herself, is the source of Roky’s artistic eccentricities. It also becomes somewhat apparent that she wants to live vicariously through her son's fame - humble as it was at the time the doc was filmed.

"...my mother was always in her own world."

[Roger Laverne Erickson, father of Roky]

Roky’s dad comes off as the epitome of “the silent generation.” The one that dealt with the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and WWII. Stomping around angry all the time, storming out until the wee hours, and when he was home - reminded everyone who’s in charge without words. He seems to symbolize the ticking time bomb that was the Erickson household, and Roky’s world in general within the context of IKTHIBH.

If you grew up poor, or lower-middle class, the above images are probably familiar. Dirty, old, barely maintained EVERYTHING. Exposed pipes, leaky faucets, dirty/beat up clothes, broken toys, empty old pool with green algae growing in it…It would seem the Ericksons dealt with the lower end of this spectrum of poverty. The smells, the darkness, the spider webs...all begin to sound like one of the horror films Roky was so drawn to. Or perhaps more accurately, FAMILIAR with. Comfortable even, upon this unsettling nest that was the Erickson household.

Roky continues, non metaphorically describing the lack of soap, electricity, and money while angry Dad stomps around wordlessly and mom screams and cries in her robe all day, apparently powerless to change anything. The seeming lack of money is odd because we are told Roger Sr was an architect and civil engineer. But perhaps these professions did not pay what they do today back then? Did dad simply not care? Did he just sorta pop into the house to make more babies and remind everyone who’s boss once in a while? It’s hard to imagine a father being this way, whilst also never speaking! Chris Cornell described his own father in a similar manner, so I guess this wasn’t that uncommon back then.

Through Roky’s child eyes, we experience the first-person process he went through in consciously acknowledging that “something just isn’t right here” and that “something needs to be done about this.” These bad feelings just grew and grew, manifesting into total fear, to the point where survival instinct began to kick in, and the inevitable need to take action was approaching fast.

The spectre of incest reveals itself at some point in the documentary "Your Gonna Miss Me", which gives all of the above a more potentially disturbing connotation. Was this the spectre creeping in the darkness that Roky was picking up on? Was it one of MANY terrible things that was never outwardly confronted and dealt with, and that fed into the mounting anxiety in the house? Clearly, there was an elephant in the room, and this poem is about that elephant.

Despite this dismal picture, Roky was talented and quite charismatic, by all accounts. He wasn't considered "crazy" at all until after he took a bunch of acid. The above pictures display his charming child-like vulnerability, accompanied with a seemingly automatic ability to express his emotions through music. This gift seemed to persist through all of the turbulent phases of his life.

Continuing on further into IKTHIBH, the word "stupid" begins popping up, in order to describe what I assume were the terrible actions of his parents. Whatever bad thing(s) happened, they were apparently too stupid to understand what they did, or how to come to terms with it on any level. At least, this is the conclusion Roky came to entertain.

As documented in many interviews with former band mates, associates, and family, Tommy Hall was basically force feeding the Elevators acid and demanding they consume it for every performance. According to John Ike Walton, the Elevators were the first to do this in the 60s. And given that Tommy Hall was attending University studying how drugs affect people, it all begins to sound very familiar. Was the 13th Floor Elevators Tommy Hall's laboratory experiment, sponsored by a secret MK Ultra-type program? If not overtly, that's probably what is was covertly.

Apparently, Roky was eager to take the drugs, though he wasn't always happy when he did. In fact, Walton said the acid "hurt him," but Roky just kept on doing it. This culminated into a Syd-Barrett type breakdown onstage, where he allegedly started singing gibberish into the microphone for an extended period of time. This is reflected in Evelyn's story board above, where on April 20th 1968, she was awoken at 3AM by Roky shouting gibberish out by the pool.

Despite all these drugs being liberally passed around and consumed all over the place, marijuanna was still very illegal in Texas at that time, and somehow Roky got in deep trouble over 1 joint. It's difficult to sort truth from fiction, but apparently Roky's mental troubles AND his troubles with the law seemed to coinside and form a perfect storm.

Rather than get locked up for years over a joint, Roky's attorney chose the "insanity plea" or something to that effect, so that he would not have to face hard jail time, but would instead be sent to Rusk Mental Hospital, where he was subjected to electro shock treatment and god knows what else. Whether Roky's diagnosis as "schizophrenic" had more to due with a legal strategy or actual reality is hard to say, but I suppose both could have been true.

Rusk was apparently the site of a violent inmate riot at one point in time before Roky's stay, as described in the newpaper headline above. Needless to say, it was probably something akin to the mental hospital depicted in "One Flew Over A Cuckoo's Next," which was a book written by a man confirmed to be involved with Mk Ultra at Stanford University.

Roky's poem starts asking, in the mind of his younger self, whether the family could even get along well enough to successfully kill someone, and then just continue on as if nothing happened? The broken toys and flora and fauna constantly referred to seem to represent the dehumanizing experience felt by the kids, amidst a scene too shocking for young minds to process.

The above image was taken after Roky left Rusk and was either visiting or staying with his mom sometime in the 80s. It is a very revealing moment, where we see Evelyn sort of coaching Roky, as he eagerly presents a new song he's been working on. It seems to me that she played a large role in grooming him for a musical career, which never quite reached the level of his famous peers for obvious reasons.

Although Roky dons that old charming musical face while playing, the picture above captures his expression while not playing - where you can really see the toll life has taken on the poor man's soul. And in response, all mom wants to do is suck more life out of him.

The above images come from a home-made film Evelyn decided to do, where she plays a sort of "Queen Mother" to her "5-Kings," which is pretty creepy when you think about it for a minute. Incestuous themes aside, it's just more evidence of her need to claim ownership of, and live vicariously through her son's fame, even as he stares off vacantly, barely seeming to care or be aware of what is happening.

The above hand drawn picture looks very old, and must be some kind of depiction of the old house referred to in IKTHIBH. It appears to have actual blood drops on it if you look closely, which may have been the original inspiration for the drawing to begin with. Why would Evelyn save this morbid drawing and put it prominently on her wall? It looks like a kid drew it, and this kid is depicting lips, blood, and hell in some abstract way. Not sure what to make of it, but a kid who depicts a house this way is clearly not in a healthy place! This comes from a mind of someone who has gone past the fear and anxiety - into morbid imagination, inspired by God knows what.

[A letter Roky wrote to Alfred Hitchcock. Roky was apparently obsessed with mail during his later years and spent a lot of time sifting through it.]

IKTHIBH continues building up the fear and paranoia and starts wondering aloud if "they" killed one of his brothers or sisters.

"One of the many, one of the babies. One of the many. One of the many. One of the many."

Did Rocky have a baby sister that was killed inside the house and who was perhaps buried down where the words "HELL" are spelled out in the "Old House" drawing? We all know Roky had mental issues, but "crazy people" don't just make stuff up out of thin air. Input is required for even a mentally insane person to have content and memories from which to form words and stories - even if they are abstract and hard to follow. Maybe this killing he's refering too is metaphorical, and maybe it isn't. But this story comes from SOMETHING real.

"I thought they had killed one of the kids. One of the babies. They had…killed…one of the kids. They had uh…killed the kid. Like one of their poor, broken little toys. They had killed a kid."

Again, here's a guy that seemed to speak almost in riddles on the regular. I don't hear any riddles here, he's just making statements. Over and over, THEY KILLED A BABY. Maybe he saw something that messed him up, and is just now talking about it for the first time?

[Evelyn's place at the time the documentary was filmed. She's hoisting up a board upon which she pasted some of the images we saw earlier, as-if prepared for another one of her cheap theatre plays which exploits her boys.]

The above is Roky's place at the time of the documentary being filmed. You can see Evelyn at the bottom left of the bottom image, propably pretending to clean up an obviously neglected living space. If I recall, Roky was on his own at that point, but Evelyn came by often. She's clearly carrying guilt over the fact that she'd rather keep her son locked up and catatonic like a stage prop than get him REAL help, which he later recieves from one of his younger brothers.

This is how Roky relaxed. Surrounded by a chaotic mess, TVs all blasting, radios on, just a hellish white noise all throughout the house. We're told this was done because he heard voices in his head and he needed to drown them out so he could relax. Man, what an awful existence!

We see Roky playing with Mr Potato Head alot, which is heartbreaking in context of all this talk about children being sort of caged and neglected like old broken toys. I think the metaphor of the broken toy is why Roky is so fixated on this one. It stirs memories of a childhood spent relating to broken toys laying all over. Although somewhat dissociated from those memories, he still feels a need to try and fix it. But all he can really do is stare at it, as if trying to remember why.

The poem crescendos with a paranoia that someone [or something] is reading his thoughts, and is aware that he knows about the killing of a child/baby in the house. This murder, or whatever it represents, is summarized by the line, "I know the hole in baby's head."

So what is the hole in baby's head and who is the baby? If we take the above literally, it would seem Evelyn [or perhaps a mistress of Roger Sr] gave birth to a baby which was promptly shot/bludgeoned in the head, for reasons we don't know. The title IKTHIBH is Roky's thinly veiled statement that he knows about it.

On a more symbolic level, perhaps the "killing" is a metaphor for the childhood taken from 5 brothers living in squalor and poverty. We know that the Erickson brothers all had a hard time as adults. One even attempted, or seriously contemplated suicide. It's easy to see "the hole in baby's head" as being the collective damage done to the kids in this family. Roky just happened to be the one annointed with the burden of telling the world about it.

Related: Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye