Tip-toe through the one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple they're comin' to take me awaaay Friday Question
BING! ZAP! BOING! KA-POW! WHIZZZZ! BOOOOOM!
ROUTE 1 staff members are celebrating a day off for some of us and the eve of a trip to Mexico for others of us. With this in mind, and with a helpful assist by ROUTE 1 reader Mike D., here is this week's FRIDAY QUESTION (with answers helpfully provided):
"What is your favorite novelty record?"
Rick T. -- Justin Wilson, "Cajun Country Comedy." Funny stuff!
Mary N.-P. -- OK, this is kind of a cop-out, but I'd have to say that it's anything by Weird Al Yankovic. I still think he's the best and was the inspiration for so much satire. I saw him once in Denver like 22 years ago and in East Dubuque, Ill., maybe four years ago and both times, he was great (the entire audience was singing along with every song at each show).
Mike M. -- When I was 4 or 5 years old, my grandfather would wake me up at dawn with a sound recording of a freight train. At first, the distant train was barely audible, except for an occasional, pleasant steam whistle. The end of the recording, of course, was blasting, screaming chaos. It was truly frightening... I should try this on my kids!
Brian C. -- "Life is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)." A studio band named Reunion came out with this entertaining oddity in the mid-1970s. The novel feature is that the lyrics are a rapid-fire reading of the names of various musical artists and bands (with a few other names mixed in). It does have some cadence and rhyme -- no easy trick. And the refrain is sort of catchy.
Mike D. -- In the mid-1970s, we got Ronco's "Funky Favorites" album. I loved "Monster Mash," "Junk Food Junkie" and "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh." My favorite line from the latter is "Wait a minute, it stopped hailing. Guys are swimming, guys are sailing."
Erik H. -- Back in the 1980s, you couldn't tune into alternative rock radio without hearing Jim Carroll (of "Basketball Diaries" fame) singing "People Who Died," which chronicled the deaths of people Carroll knew:
"Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room/Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs/Judy jumped in front of a subway train/Eddie got slit in the jugular vein."
I love that song, but I don't find myself singing along while driving. That honor would go to a more acknowledged novelty classic, Sheb Wooley's 1958 hit "The Purple People Eater." It's one of those songs that is so catchy you begin to hate it, but eventually the lyrics seem to become seared into your memory, so you might as well learn to live with it and like it:
"Well bless my soul, rock and roll, flying purple people eater/Pigeon-toed, undergrowed, flying purple people eater/(We wear short shorts) Flying purple people eater/Sure looks strange to me!"
ROUTE 1 staff members are celebrating a day off for some of us and the eve of a trip to Mexico for others of us. With this in mind, and with a helpful assist by ROUTE 1 reader Mike D., here is this week's FRIDAY QUESTION (with answers helpfully provided):
"What is your favorite novelty record?"
Rick T. -- Justin Wilson, "Cajun Country Comedy." Funny stuff!
Mary N.-P. -- OK, this is kind of a cop-out, but I'd have to say that it's anything by Weird Al Yankovic. I still think he's the best and was the inspiration for so much satire. I saw him once in Denver like 22 years ago and in East Dubuque, Ill., maybe four years ago and both times, he was great (the entire audience was singing along with every song at each show).
Mike M. -- When I was 4 or 5 years old, my grandfather would wake me up at dawn with a sound recording of a freight train. At first, the distant train was barely audible, except for an occasional, pleasant steam whistle. The end of the recording, of course, was blasting, screaming chaos. It was truly frightening... I should try this on my kids!
Brian C. -- "Life is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)." A studio band named Reunion came out with this entertaining oddity in the mid-1970s. The novel feature is that the lyrics are a rapid-fire reading of the names of various musical artists and bands (with a few other names mixed in). It does have some cadence and rhyme -- no easy trick. And the refrain is sort of catchy.
Mike D. -- In the mid-1970s, we got Ronco's "Funky Favorites" album. I loved "Monster Mash," "Junk Food Junkie" and "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh." My favorite line from the latter is "Wait a minute, it stopped hailing. Guys are swimming, guys are sailing."
Erik H. -- Back in the 1980s, you couldn't tune into alternative rock radio without hearing Jim Carroll (of "Basketball Diaries" fame) singing "People Who Died," which chronicled the deaths of people Carroll knew:
"Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room/Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs/Judy jumped in front of a subway train/Eddie got slit in the jugular vein."
I love that song, but I don't find myself singing along while driving. That honor would go to a more acknowledged novelty classic, Sheb Wooley's 1958 hit "The Purple People Eater." It's one of those songs that is so catchy you begin to hate it, but eventually the lyrics seem to become seared into your memory, so you might as well learn to live with it and like it:
"Well bless my soul, rock and roll, flying purple people eater/Pigeon-toed, undergrowed, flying purple people eater/(We wear short shorts) Flying purple people eater/Sure looks strange to me!"
posted by erik hogstrom at 6:45 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home