Maybe even better than re-living all my favorite novelty songs from my childhood on Spotify was discovering some songs I had never heard before by some of my favorite artists – many long dead and gone.<\/p>\n\n\n
Allan Sherman died young – 48, I think. You might not recognize the name but maybe you remember his most famous song – the one about an unhappy boy at summer camp: Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah<\/i>. (If you haven’t heard of it, where have you been? It’s got its own Wikipedia page!) It made it to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 List in 1963 – only kept from the #1 spot by Stevie Wonder.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Anyway, on Spotify I came across one of Sherman’s songs I had never heard before. It was set to the tune of Chim Chim Chiree<\/i> and it reminded me of something else I always appreciated about novelty music as a genre…<\/p>\n\n\n
Novelty music has always been a great place for social commentary. I appreciate humorists who can get me laughing while also getting across an important truth.<\/p>\n\n\n
Sherman’s Chim Chim Chiree<\/i> is about advertising and how easily we fall for what the world is selling us. The last stanza was my favorite*:<\/p>\n\n\n
I’ve lived all my life<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
In this weird wonderland –<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
I keep buying things<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
That I don’t understand,<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
Cause they promise me miracles,<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
Magic and hope,<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
But somehow it always\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
Turns out to be soap.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
More relevant today than ever!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
___________________________<\/p>\n\n\n
* It’s even better if you conjure up the melody as you read the lyrics – especially the way the tune puts an emphasis on the word “soap”. Brilliant!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maybe even better than re-living all my favorite novelty songs from my childhood on Spotify was discovering some songs I had never heard before by some of my favorite artists – many long dead and gone. Allan Sherman died young – 48, I think. You might not recognize the name but maybe you remember his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6816"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6817,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6816\/revisions\/6817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}