Whatever happened to really silly pop songs?
They were called “novelty songs,” although I didn’t know it at the time. They occupied a special niche that doesn’t seem to exist anymore in this far less innocent age: a nonsensical bubble-gum type of music/lyrics, meant mostly to amuse in the lightest of ways. They were silly even back when they first came out, in the 50s and early 60s of my youth.
Here are the ones I remember best (and believe me, they’re memorable—good for an earworm or two, or perhaps three or four):
(1) “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” The classic was written in a time when a girl who wore even a navel-covering two-piece bathing suit was being daring. And a navel-baring bikini? Outasight.
(2) “Purple People Eater.” Connected in my mind to the era of UFO madness and cheap sci-fi movies.
(3) “Monster Mash.” A very uptight-seeming and rather nasty teacher at my school did a lip-synch to this song one memorable assembly. We looked at him a trifle more kindly after that.
(4) “Poison Ivy.” She’s creepy.
(5) “Love Potion No. 9.” This one is borderline; not really all that silly at all. But just silly enough to be included. And I happen to like it; always did.
(6) “Wooly Bully.” Utterly nonsensical and almost unintelligible.
(7) “Surfin Bird.” Watch out for this hideosity. Especially dreadful.
(9) “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor.” Don’t know; never tried the recommended experiment.
(10) Then there is the grandaddy of a slightly different genre—unintentionally silly songs: “MacArthur Park.” This one came a bit later than the classic period (it was released in 1968). But it struck me then, and it strikes me now, as one of the best/worse of the genre (I must confess that I did have a slight crush on Richard Harris, however).
Novelty songs still exist but have been shunted off into the corners, and are almost never played in the mainstream. See Dr. Demento and Weird Al Yankovic.
To me this absence is part of a larger question of what happened to simple, appealing songs in general.
Youd think that people would have had enought of silly pop songs.
But I look around me and I see it isnt so.
Some people wanna fill the world with silly pop songs.
And whats wrong with that?
Id like to know, cause here I go again
I pop you, I pop you,
I pop you, I pop you,
Yeah, they definitely still exist. Punk rock is extremely fond of them- for about a week, I couldn’t listen to XM’s punk station without hearing “Dave Navarro’s Mustache Sucks”. NOFX’s “Monosyllabic Girl” is a particular guilty pleasure of mine, and then there’s Reverend Horton Heat’s blistering cover of the Jonny Quest theme song…
The relatively few rappers with a sense of humor like them, too. They lend themselves well to the format in general. I give you “Baby Got Back” and “Funky Cold Medina”.
They’re obviously a bit harder-edged than the old bubblegum novelty, but the spirit of silly for its own sake is still there. And, of course, as huxley mentioned, Weird Al. I know a lot of Weird Al songs better than I know the originals.
Thanks for the memories, Neo. It was fun just being silly.
It’s a little depressing to think how many of those songs I not only know, but have *performed*.
Here’s another one to add to your list, Neo: “Sittin’ In The Back Seat (with Fred)”. The last time I performed that, I had someone ask: “How on earth do you get seven girls into the backseat?”
And then there are the ‘fifties songs with nonsense lyrics — “Blue Moon”, Grease’s “We Go Together”, and so on.
In re MacArthur Park: what’s this about you and Dumbledore, Neo?
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Daniel: Wow, thanks. I had forgotten those seven little girls in the back seat kissin’ and a’huggin’ with Fred.
LabRat: I’m not familiar with those newer ones you list, but they made me think of another one that’s relatively new: “I’m Too Sexy…” Definitely a harder edge, though, than the olden golden days.
Those of us who were young during WWII remember “Marisy doats.” A very catchy tune and lyrics.
Marisy doats and does eat oats
and little lambsy divy,
A kiddle eat ivey, too
wouldn’t you?
For me, nothing tops the 1966 hit, “They’re Coming to Take Me Away,” by Napoleon XIV.
Ruth H: I thought about that one, which my mother used to sing to me when I was little (she was also fond of “Three Little Fishies“).
Don’t remember to forget 96 Tears, by Question Mark, and the Mysterians!
You know Neo, I think Gerard has a crush on you. Want me to pass him a note in study hall?
What about Bobby Darrin’s Splish Splash ?
Wasn’t it Tommy Rowe who did “Dizzy”. First song i think of when bubble gum music is mentioned.
Obi, you just keep your little thoughts in your purty little haid!
Recently heard someone from Fermilab sing this:
“Do your particles lose their flavor in the
chamber overnight?
Do they enter with a left hand spin and exit with a right?
…”
Try the Miserable Melodies website. It can produce a kind of awe.
ah… at the core what happened depends on which angle you want to take it from…
one angle is that like movies, the times change, and we become interested in different things. this is why there are no comedy teams anymore, etc…
however to a pwerson that studies broad history, etc… you can go back real far and start once again with the franfurt school, and delve in to Adorno’ commentaries.
another large part of it is the invasion of all media by these people, and later by the people they pulled in, and so on till places like hollyweird are very left. (sidbar: new comedy coming out by a right leaning director. recent article on it was describing how a lot of actors, act left, and dont talk so they can still work. reverse mccarthyism)
they went into the school system, publishing, the arts, hollywood, and media. they squeezed their way in. (read The Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem by Carolyn G. Heilbrun. you will discover she slept to get her first book published. tried to run ms. magazine the way that they want all businesses today to be run. with mothers and kids, no heirarchy, jobs done by lots. basically a marxist commune in an editorial setting. the place failed, went into almost banruptcy, when it then changed to a non profit. which allowed the FORD FOUNDATION to give them lots of money. then she slept with mort Zukerman for the money… thats how one marxist woman squeezed in)
[the ford foundatoin is very key. they kicked ford and his son out who complained that it was promoting communism, and they have done so heavily ever since]
what neo is noticing can be seen in each of the arts… in music we suddenly regressed, banished classical, and even went in to atonal music, etc. Brahms died just before 1900, by the 20s classical was going.
and with the advent of recorded music, the reproduciblilty, etc… adorno and his standardization came in.
however, the same went with art. uplifting forms were out. no more things like the sistine chapel, but amorphous blobs, and such.
movies changed slowly… they went from films made to make people happy… however, at some point you can see the changes happening… movies no longer reflected what we liked, but now were pushing a subtext. they werent there to entertain us, they were there to push us forward. themes became perverse. they used tv to use stalins term, to normalize certain things.
news changed from a public service that law required them to put some time aside for, to entertainment. (the more women or left we went, the more it was like gossip, entertainment, and why talk about all that boring scary stuff in the world)
after the 60s with the left seeped in so much… we are now in the final days… demoralized, nihilistic, and lots more.
a long while back i said you can track these changes by looking at what kinds of songs topped the charts.
the songs neo put up were just before or during the leftist/communist/socialist revolution…
that was when the recording industry switched from finding talent, to making talent. they discovered the process that payola revealed. that you can play stuff over and over, and it will become a hit as everyone thinks everyone else likes it.
while they still discover bands the stuff works a lot different. most bands signed will never ever ever go anywhere. they sign contracts that leave them suspended and stuck. this is the purpose of these contracts. if they suddenly pack them in, then they are already bought on their terms, if they never then record company loses nothing. either way, they are locked up from competition at least for a few albums.
on the flip side, the cross marketing deals have made marketing firms that spend their time creating groups. R-Angels was one such…
and would you believe that the Monkees was such a group? neil young auditioned but they didnt like his crooked teeth.
well, today all this is semistandardized. r-angels had songs planted in movies. that gived them cred for album covers and reason to play in sets. since clearchannel also owns movie stock and so forth, they make sure that things go into sets. payola without the money so to speak.
so back in the time of those ditties, and before them, the industry was just selecting people. they were in the business of mining for gold, but then they figured out how to make faux gold.
they selected songs based on their left theme, the better and more subtle, the more they wanted that. they paired songs up with singers (and still do).
they applied what adorno said and others. they primitivized the music more and more… heavier beats… wall of sound…
the tunes above (except mcarter park), are mostly the same as old funny folk ditties…
there used to also be comedy albums. people would literally sit and memorize whole routines.
adorno said the more primitive the music the less they pay attention to whats actually being said. it erodes their faculites.
all this combined was done internally and with external help to change us. to make us self defeat.
in history there was a famous arabian walled city. it has never been defeated but once, but that required betrayal from inside.
the darker side of history is how much our landscape for about 100 years has been speckled by very effective people sympathetic to other political system, working to rot out the inside so that it falls.
no one believes it. not even if you parade out a list of them from harry dexter white, all the way up to a iranian woman recently. hundreds of them, literally thousands of them. many of them in places of power (dexter was the head of our treasury department).
publishing houses were bought, and what we read could easily be skewed only by selecting from the pile what to publish. writers will get the hint and write more of what they would pay for. so our literature went from 13th grade down to 5th grade today with them saying they are meeting the market… (new little publishing houses that are successful and not in line, get bought up).
we went from being a selfless country and population with western values, and we have been walking through neitches reversal of the virtues.
list them and notice, the virtues are now sins, and we live as if we worship the sins as virtue.
each thing perverted… twisted from within, so that we would then regard what it was as it is. we would find no solace in these things that would and did give us solace for centuries.
no more will music make us feel good and reinforce life. hear evanescence hit song “save me from the dark” it would never have sold to our grandparetns who didnt like the primitive rock and roll.. they liked the lyrics they wanted their songs to have meaning, it gave life meaning. now you get nihilism on tap like evanescence.
How can you see into my eyes like open doors?
Leading you down into my core,
Where I’ve become so numb
Without a soul…
My spirit’s sleeping somewhere cold
Until you find it there and lead it back home
not only nihilism but thats a good song for a borderline personality disorder…
from the sixties, songs had to have meaning… and so frippery songs were out. they required listening.
today, you can understand how they are constructed thanks to blues travelers the hook brings you back. (though they also dont mention that what you do is take a few bars of an old song everyone knows, then extend and wrap it in new stuff. this gives it the ability to be known, and fresn and new at the same time. and then give it lyrics like travelers. its stanfardized as adorno said, and they went out and purposefully fulfilled)
the songs and films we watch are like acid trips all the time.
movies have finally crossed the line into real sadism not fake stuff (like saw).
no wonder people are ready for a savior. thats how a coupe works. everything is made worse and bad.. and suddenly someone comes to calm the storm…
most people are doing quite well. most people dont realize that they live better than most kings of the past did. and most actually dont have much quality difference of life from the very wealthy (if they dont think that fancy is better), other than mobility. but even thats is there for everyone too. how many people travel?
the other day i had some cheap silk pajamas on my wife bought me. and the joke of it is, that at a time in the past only the most rich wore silk. (fulfilling the saying. socialists see the wealthy and say no one should live like that, and capitalists see the wealthy and say everyone should live like that)
our poor are overweight!!! they carry cell phones, and have amenities…
yet… we no longer can value life, our own nation for its bounty, and on and on?
only working on us for three generations or so constantly wearing us down…
even our new watl disney cartoons and childrens stories are tainted. (wall-e… male is a buffoon and a throwback. woman is a kick ass hair triggered violent babe… the people are all fat and lazy, and never think to read the history on the computer in the 700 years they have been there. they have space travel, but cant launch the garbage to the sun, even though their ships can be contained envoronments for 700 years. etc).
read the list from the naked communist. a few of them obama has stated is his goal!
Current Communist Goals
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, January 10, 1963
i will only put the ones up that are pertinent to this post.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [“]united force[“] to solve economic, political or social problems.
so its not just those who moved from germany and set up shop at columbia university (the school with the most communist spies associated to it)… you know the place where they taught the teachers and administrators what to teach (indoctrinate, as agreed at the teachers UNION in th 40s).
anyway… in order for cute ditties to make it on the air, the big business that distributes it and promotes it has to offer it to us so that we can purchase and say we like it with our monetary vote. however since the system aint working normal (ny times revenue down over 80% this year, and yet the sulzbergers dont care, they keep cranking out the leftist stuff). so they are not going to select songs like the archies sugar.
and if you can paint like rafael, your not going to get a gallery showing (go ahead, look at whats in the galleries).
if you write, your not going to make money writing something like fenimore coopers deerslayer, your going to make money writing twisted sadistic horror… or leftist pap (like the new one that is saying man was not a hunter but a vegetarian. meanwhile ignoring that what is man, not a earlier version, always hunted.. his ancestors didn, and every predatory line started from a vegetarian line at some point since prey comes before predators)
there is scholarly stuff out there.. and histories… but you have to dig.. otherwise you get revision, re-imagineering, and more.
the ditties are gone because they dont want us to feel good… we would not accept the rhetoric of obama or equivalent if we could see how well we have it and how if we had a better attitude we would be more producive and that would lift the world (As it has been doing for more than 200 years slowly).
right now they are using the desire you have for things like this to make digital radio sell. but once thats it.. they will back down and it will be dull.. cable and satellite suck since they make money on pay per view and dvd rentals at stores… so they pass a new movie through real fast… and keep the same old same old cheap crap movies playing constantly… (notice how they try to kill christmass as something special by playing those movies all year round, and not the older uplifting ones, but the newer perverted ones).
sorry so long… but in as amall a space i could tell you in a way, what happened to all the things you loved. that we all loved..
we let people take it awya from us by not protesting loudly when things were chaning.
Don’t forget those unforgettable tunes by Alan Sherman.
One was about some kid at summer camp.
I believe it went something like this…
Hello muddah
Hello faddah
Dis is me at
Camp Grenada
If you come and
Try to kiss me
It won’t fool me
Cause I know that you
Don’t miss me.
You were partial
To my sistah
Even though she
Is a blistah.
She’s the one who
Poisoned Grammy
And eviscerated our
Dear kitty Sammy.
Our fami-
Ly dysfunction
Leads me to make
Extreme unction
All these pills I’m
Getting sleepy
Muddah Faddah how come
I turned out so creepy?
Stupid songs, really.
Hmmm… “Surfin Bird” may have been a dreadful hideosity, but it was a fabulous fit to one of the best scenes in Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket”.
Awww, I’m just tryin’ to help. hee hee.
You might want to check out the campy rockabilly-punk legends The Cramps for a dose of double entendres,sci-fi allusions and 50’s and 60’s pop culture references.They are trash done with panache!
hey, anyone remember…
i want to kiss her but, she wont let me?
or
please dont bang on that piano
or even
Dont sit down on the plexiglass toilet
Country music has a LOT of “novelty” type songs– if you include those that are punned, I’d say at least a third. (Otherwise: John Deer Green, etc.)
There’s also a lot of tech-pop– like Daze’s “superhero lover.”
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-7905996960260307141
Drive-by commenting here.
Gitarzan and Boogie-Woogie Amputee are my never-fails.
I lived next door to Lee Pockriss who wrote both Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and Johnny Angel. Polar opposite of his songs.
I can’t help but note that as a therapist, you did not put on your list the all time novelty song champ:
“They’re Coming to Take Me Away”.
Off the top of my pointy head:
They’re Red Hot by Robert Johnson
Hold that Tiger by The Mills Brothers
Rag Mop by The Mills Brothers
Hold Tight Hold Tight (Want Some Seafood Mama) by the Andrews Sisters
Flat Foot Floogie by Fats Waller
Your Feet’s Too Big by Fats Waller
Minnie the Moocher by Cab Calloway
How Much is That Doggie in the Window? by Doris Day
My Ding-a-Ling by Chuck Berry
Ahab the Arab by Ray Stevens
The Streak by Ray Stevens
Convoy by CW McCall
Telephone Man by Meri Wilson
On the Cover of the Rolling Stone by Dr. Hook
Faraway Eyes by The Rolling Stones
Get Dancin by Disco Tex and the Sex-o-Lettes
Disco Duck by Rick Dees
YMCA by The Village People
In the Navy by The Village People
Boogie Shoes by KC & The Sunshine Band
Valley Girl by Frank & Moon Zappa
Dancin’ Fool by Frank Zappa
Basketball Jones feat. Tyrone Shoelaces by Cheech & Chong
Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band by Meco
Istanbul by The Four Lads (and They Might Be Giants)
Shaddap You Face by Joe Dolce
Anything by Southern Culture on the Skids
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I think there are more novelty songs than there ever were – starting with the eighties independent recording boom, and with the internet afterwards.
What there isn’t any more is a monolithic culture that all finds the same things funny in lockstep. For some of us, “Anarchy In The U.K.” was a novelty song – stupid, funny, and ultimately pointless. For others, it was an absolutely serious call to a new way of life. Does Jonathan Coulton do novelty songs? Was the Fast Food Rockers’ “Pizza Hut” a novelty song or just a particularly crass pop song? And what of the entire “lounge” movement?
The conditions for novelty hits haven’t really existed since the advent of narrowcasting in the Seventies, which is when Dr. Demento got started playing ONLY novelties, while they got squeezed out of increasingly specific radio playlists.
You refer to the present moment as a “this far less innocent age.” Maybe you are joking or just naive — who knows. But the pop tunes in the past tended to be explore rather taboo themes, too, like sex and drugs. Take the song, “Hold Tight” by Fats Waller. It’s about oral sex, even if many didn’t get it at the time. And form the 1800s onward there are no shortage of songs about cocaine, morphine, murder, sex, etc.
Nancy: neither joking nor naive. Hidden messages known only to the few who “get” them would only go to prove my point. When such messages must be hidden, and many people don’t get the reference, that is evidence that the age is more innocent.
No age, of course, is completely innocent, nor even close to it. Sex, drugs, and the equivalent of rock and roll have always existed, as has pornography, one of the oldest phenomena on earth. But now all these things are out in the open—take the lyrics of rap music as an example—for all to see and/or hear, including young children. This was most definitely not true in the Fifties, the era of nearly all the songs in this post.
Hi neo-neocon, thanks for the reply. You have some good points.
It is true that things are more out in the open nowadays. And I personally like how in the past songwriters hid ideas in metaphor, allusion, allegory, etc. However, I am not sure I agree with your interpretation of hidden reference:
“When such messages must be hidden, and many people don’t get the reference, that is evidence that the age is more innocent.”
I think when things are hidden or “in the closet,” it’s not necessarily a sign of innocence; it very well could be a sign of oppression (lack of freedom of speech) or heavy social constraints.
In any case, there was plenty of stuff that was quite “out in the open” in the past…for example, these ballads from late 1800s and early 1900s: Cocaine Lil, Morphine Sue, Blacksnake Moan, etc.
Nancy: “innocence” is of course a relative term. The culture of the 50s, when things were more hidden, did in fact enable children to grow up without the constant overt sexual stimulation and references (some of them of the exploitative sort) they must deal with today. I am assuming that did not grow up during that era or earlier, but most who did realize that in fact there was a great deal more opportunity for children to preserve a relative sexual innocence until they were old enough to handle sexual information and acitivity better.
As far as Cocaine Lil, etc. goes, these were not songs played regularly in front of children in the mainstream culture and watched by them on TV, like today’s music is.