Let's lighten up. Something a little different - lyrics

Ed1937

Does music of today have better lyrics than music of yesterday? Sometimes it's hard not to remember certain lines. Case in point: oooo eeee oooo ah ah, ting tang walla walla bing bang. Oooo eeee oooo ah ah, ting tang walla walla bang bang. I don't think it gets much better than that.  WITCH DOCTOR (David Seville) 1958 original version 

Beachfan

Wow, Ed!  A trip down memory lane.  “Where were you in ‘62.”  How about: “It was an itsy, bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka dot bikini that she wore for the first time today.”?  My grandkids crack up when I “sing” the oldies.  (I tell them at least those “oldies” had lyrics that could be understood.)

Ed1937

I don't remember Brian Hyland (had to look it up on youtube), but I sure remember the song.

CStrope

I've always chuckled at Cecelia......I got up to wash my face when I got back to bed someone's taking my place.   Why the heck did he suddenly have to wash his face!!!

M1

CStrope, he needed something to rhyme with "place."  Might be fun to try to think of other things he could have done--got up to pee, when I got back to bed there was someone besides me?

Got up to eat, when I got back to bed I was just a piece of meat?

I bet there are others much better than that.

Rescue mom

There are several popular singer/songwriters who write incredibly good lyrics; lyrics you (at least I)  have to stop and listen to. Can’t be background music. I’m a child of the late 60s-early 70s, musically, but these writers now are lyrically miles—many many miles— above most pop music then.

 The problem is, radio now is so formula-driven/standardized,  you have to make more effort to find them. Yes, there are more choices available now with streaming, that also makes it  harder to find the good stuff.

John1965

Not trying to be a Gloomy Gus, but the Witch Doctor song was released seven full years before DW and I were born. Early onset really is its own circle of hell.

https://youtu.be/zj40gnE5rPQ

Joydean

Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost over night!   That’s still one silly song. Why would you put your gum on bedpost ?!

Jo C.

Sha-boom, Sha-boom . . . 

Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl . . . (paid by the word?)

I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want . . . (huh?)

Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive . . . (underwear too tight?)

Can't even quote, "Louie . . . Louie . . oh yeah . . . " ???? (stoned?)

50's music though is the best of the best . . .  

mrl

Jo,

You just cracked me up. When I was a kid my mom would get a busy signal on the

phone and go duke duke duke, LOL Thanks I needed that

Michele

Stuck in the middle

CStrope wrote:

I've always chuckled at Cecelia......I got up to wash my face when I got back to bed someone's taking my place.   Why the heck did he suddenly have to wash his face!!!

To cool off.  I was a young man with oily skin when that song came out, and it made perfect sense to me.  You can get pretty sweaty on a "hot" night!

Stuck in the middle

Joydean wrote:

Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost over night!   That’s still one silly song. Why would you put your gum on bedpost ?!

Cause your mother said "Don't chew it" and you put it there in spite.

Stuck in the middle

The great thing about music is it doesn't have to make sense.  I remember my mother teaching us nonsense songs from the '40s and my grandfather playing some ragtime records from the 1920s on his wind-up Victrola.  

As Sonny & Cher said, The beat goes on.

Stuck in the middle

Ed1937 wrote:

Does music of today have better lyrics than music of yesterday? Sometimes it's hard not to remember certain lines. Case in point: oooo eeee oooo ah ah, ting tang walla walla bing bang. Oooo eeee oooo ah ah, ting tang walla walla bang bang. I don't think it gets much better than that.  WITCH DOCTOR (David Seville) 1958 original version 

Isn't David Seville the Dave who did the chipmunk songs?  Very talented guy.

M1

Yes indeed I think he was, Stuck.  I got an Alvin and the Chipmunks record for Christmas when I was six...along with a Sing Along with Mitch Miller, remember that?  My biggest kick was when my son (born December 1991) asked me if I knew who Paul McCartney was..... and now I have a great video of my three-year-old granddaughter dancing in a conga line to "I Wanna Hold Your Hand."

jmlarue

Let's take you back, kiddies, to 1959. I was only 8 years old, but my sisters were both teenagers and taught me how to do "The Bop" with the big kids. I knew all the lyrics to this song.

Pink Shoelaces

… Now I've got a guy and his name is Dooley
He's my guy and I love him truly
He's not good lookin', heaven knows
But I'm wild about his crazy clothes

… He wears tan shoes with pink shoelaces
A polka dot vest and man, oh, man
He wears tan shoes with pink shoelaces
And a big Panama with a purple hat band

… Ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh

Ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh......

Joe C.

A one eyed, one horn flying purple people eater

Faith,Hope,Love

Remember this one?  My Mom had some records we used to play, and this was one of my favorites.

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts.

Every ball you roll will make me rich.

There stands my wife, the idol of my life

Singing roll a bowl a ball a penny a pitch.

Jo C.

One of the most unfortunate when one listens to the complete lyrics in multiple stanzas . . . and being popular, it played all over the radio in 1955:

Sailor boy he talk to me in English

Sailor boy he tell me what to say

Sailor boy he talk to me in English

Now I know all about the USA

 

Ed1937

WOW! Talk about reminiscing. I remember every one of them.

Ed1937

I was stranded in the jungle.

Jo C.

When the clock strikes twelve, we'll cool off then
Start a rockin' round the clock again
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight

That is the one I learned to do the Bop to; my little friend's bigger sister taught us, we thought we were so-o-o-o-o cool and "with it," two little idjits that we were.  Gads; I can't even think about managing to do that now. I would rock alright; both knees rocking and knocking  and a 911 call to get me off the floor and make sure I was still breathing!

Would much rather slow dance to, "In The Still Of The Night."  That was a good one.  My husband and I did a lot of slow dancing and some good  kissing to that.  Lovely.  Even today, when I hear that one by the Platters, my brain goes into instant recall, feelings and all.  Old broad still a girl inside and my husband still that sweet, handsome boy I would eventually elope with.  (Still feel bad about our traumatized parents; but it all worked out so well.)

What are your memories?

J.

jmlarue

Jo C - You really brought back the slow dance memory with "In The Still of the Night" and then I remembered "Twilight Time." We had a teen dance club called the Sugar Shack and that was always the last song of the night.

"There was a crazy little shack beyond the track. And everybody called it the Sugar Shack..,"

"Heavenly shades of night are falling, its twilight time...together, at last, at twilight time..."

How many of our LOs can't do better than word salad on a good day, but can still sing the lyrics to some of the old songs? It seems to be the last memory to go, and Thank God for that.

M1

Blue, blue, my love is blue.  Blue is my love, my longing for you....first 45 I ever bought with my own money.  First LP:  Herb Albert and the Tiajuana Brass.  I was childhood neighbors with Webb Pierce, Tex Ritter, Porter Wagoner, Minnie Pearl.  Really jealous because Porter Wagoner's daughter got picked up at school in either a Cadillac with longhorn steer horns mounted on the front and silver dollars in the dashboard, or her own little Conestoga wagon drawn by six goats.  My mom's Pontiac station wagon didn't compare.....and Debbie Pierce had a guitar-shaped swimming pool.  But I didn't make my first trip to the Opry until I was sixteen.

Vitruvius

Oh, how could all of you do this?  You have released the dreaded  "öhrwurm" (earworm) of 50's and 60's novelty songs out onto a helpless caregiver population. Like dementia there is no known cure for earworms. They must pass away on their own accord. 

Now late in the restless night, in a half sleep I visit the attic of my mind to find that someone has left the normally locked chest of these songs wide open to torture me for hours, days even. Oh, how could you all?

These type of posts should require a warning label.

M1

All-time funny favorite:  My dingaling....

Lills

Thanks for the upbeat post!  I needed that!

M1:  I, too, got the Alvin and the Chipmunks song for Christmas when I was five (or six?).  And, as a Pom-Pom girl way back in HS, we used many of Herb Albert and the Tiajuana Brass' music for our routines   Oh, Those Were the Days My Friends, We Thought They'd Never End!

Just Bill

There's a man in the funny papers we all know
(Alley-Oop, oop, oop, oop-oop)
He lives way back a long time ago
(Alley-Oop, oop, oop, oop-oop)
He don't eat nothin' but a bear cat stew
(Alley-Oop, oop, oop, oop-oop)
Well, this cat's name is Alley-Oop
(Alley-Oop, oop, oop, oop-oop)

I'm an apeman, I'm an ape, apeman, oh I'm an apeman
I'm a King Kong man, I'm a voodoo man, oh I'm an apeman
I look out the window but I can't see the sky
The air pollution is a-fogging eyes
I want to get out of this city alive and make like an apeman

saltom

Red Sails in the Sunset, Slow Boat to China, Sentimental Journey, Irene Goodnight, and the flip side Senna Senna Senna (may not have the spelling right on that one.)  DH favored all the big bands because he had older siblings who played them - Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman.

toolbeltexpert

M1 my mom would play Herb Albert endlessly. And leaving on a jet plane. I used to do Donald Duck fairly well and would sing "oh my darling, " all my friends and family would make me do it for their friends. When I got dentures that all went away. 

Here's some ear worm stuff.

In the town where I was born

Lived a man who sailed to sea

And he told us of his life

In the land of submarines

So we sailed on to the sun

'Til we found a sea of green

And we lived beneath the waves

In our yellow submarine

We all live in a yellow submarine

Yellow submarine, yellow submarine

We all live in a yellow submarine

Yellow submarine, yellow submarine 

White Crane

Oh, this is so fun!  I remember all of these songs!  Does anyone remember:

I love you I love you said the little blue man.

I love you I love you to bits!

I love you I love you said the little blue man.

And scared me right out of my wits!

I think it might have been a Rosemary Clooney song.