We Care a Lot

The title track "We Care a Lot" was rerecorded for their follow-up album Introduce Yourself and released as their first single. This later version of the song was incorrectly listed as the original and the album Introduce Yourself was listed as the début in the sleeve notes for some subsequent releases, such as the 1998 compilation Who Cares a Lot? The Greatest Hits.

The band is known to have re-recorded only one song from We Care a Lot in the studio with current singer Mike Patton on vocals. "As the Worm Turns" was recorded during the Angel Dust sessions.

However, a number of live recordings of songs from this album with Patton on vocals have been released over the years.

1. "We Care a Lot"
   • various "Falling to Pieces" singles^{[citation needed]}
   • Live at the Brixton Academy
   • "We Care a Lot" (contains Patton's live version from Live At The Brixton Academy and Mosley's studio version from Introduce Yourself)^{[citation needed]}
   • "I'm Easy/Be Aggressive" CD2 single^{[citation needed]}
   • "We Care a Lot/I Started a Joke" (contains Patton's live version from Live At The Brixton Academy and Mosley's studio version from Introduce Yourself)^{[citation needed]}
   • various "I Started a Joke" singles^{[citation needed]}
2. "Mark Bowen"
   • "I'm Easy/Be Aggressive" CD1 single
3. "As the Worm Turns"
   • various "Epic" CD singles
   • Live at the Brixton Academy
   • Angel Dust (Japanese edition)

A later recording of "We Care a Lot" (from the album Introduce Yourself) is used as the theme song for the show Dirty Jobs.

The band initially started recording the album without backing from a record label and, after pooling their money, recorded five songs. This gained the attention of Ruth Schwartz (who was then forming the independent label Mordam Records) under which the band (after receiving the finances to do so) finished and released the album. It was the first official release for both the band and the label.^[6]

The album was recorded in a short space of time on a low budget.^[7] In a 2015 interview, bassist Billy Gould reflected, "There are probably things we could have done better, but at the same time I think that the performances were pretty damned good. And that had to do with us keeping focused and needing to work within those budget restrictions. We rehearsed quite a lot before we went in to record, so we were ready."^[7]

While released on vinyl and cassette in 1985, this album would not be released to buy as a CD until 1995 in Australia (on Mushroom Records) as a pink disc for the first pressing, and black disc for the second, to coincide with the tour for their fifth studio album King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime, released that year. In 1996, it was reissued on CD, vinyl and cassette in the UK and Japan with slightly modified artwork, one being a purple disc. The CD reissue version of the album can be seen during a scene at a record store in the 1997 film Chasing Amy.

The album was reissued by Koolarrow Records on August 19, 2016, and includes nine additional tracks, including three remixes, four demos and two live recordings from a 1986 show at the I-Beam, San Francisco. It was remastered by Maor Appelbaum ^[9]

The third track "Mark Bowen" was titled after an early Faith No More/Faith No Man guitarist of the same name.^[10][11]

The truth behind "the Mark Bowen" song, is that prior to having a permanent singer, the band named their songs after persons, places, or things that were around when the music was formulated, rather than naming them song A or song B, etc. There were no lyrics and therefore no real song name. When the boys sent a tape to LA, so that Chuck could write some lyrics for his upcoming stint as singer, he made up lyrics for the song that was labeled as, "Mark Bowen". I had spent a day or so with Chuck prior to that, but he did not really know me. He just made up a song. I'm happy to have my 15 minutes of fame from that, ha!

— Mark Bowen^[10]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[4]

Select magazine, while also mentioning the roughness of production, said that the music is inexorable and "a lustful marriage of mutoid metal and dancefloor verve that owed nothing to anybody".^[12] AllMusic made repeated reference to the absence of future front man Mike Patton and criticized Chuck Mosley's vocals, calling him "often off-key, fairly monotonous, and colorless" but credited the album for having "lots of attitude", comparing it to early Public Image Ltd works.^[4]

Mike Patton labelled the album as "bad hippie music".^[13] However, his Mr. Bungle bandmate Trey Spruance was a fan.^[14] When Spruance joined Faith No More for their 1995 album King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime, he suggested that the band return to the sound they had on We Care a Lot.^[14]

• We Care a Lot - Deluxe Band Edition - Remastered by Maor Appelbaum