Silly Songs. Seriously?

The following is an "off-book" speech I gave at the Pacifica PM Toastmasters Club. It was off-book because my next speech was to feature an anecdote. It would have been a much better speech if I had the time to actually have played the silly songs but in five to seven minutes, I couldn't even hum a few bars, for which everyone was relieved. I had a handout with just some of the "silly songs" and their YouTube url on it but here, you get a direct link. Enjoy!

I believe my father first introduced me to silly songs, silly Navy songs, even though my mother wouldn’t let him teach me most of the verses. It didn’t even matter that he couldn’t sing. The “silliness” is mostly in the words, the catchy music just helps you remember them, as in many of the tunes are the kind that get stuck in your mind. Don’t worry, while I may quote a line or two, I don’t intend to sing anything. To this day, however, I still wonder what words in “My Gal’s a Corker” my mother wouldn’t let him use in front of me.

[I could only remember three verses of the one song my father taught me of the one that follows but one of the attendees gave me another one:
The chicken in the Navy they say is mighty fine,
But one got on the table and started keeping time.

The biscuits in the Navy they say are mighty fine,
But one rolled off the table and killed a pal of mine.

The coffee in the Navy they say is mighty fine,
It looks like muddy water and tastes like iodine.

My new one: The pay in the Navy they say is mighty fine,
They give you fifty dollars and take back forty-nine.
I'm sure none of the recruits learned these until after they joined and maybe they are a part of why I never did.]

I learned there are lots and lots of silly songs with absolutely no questionable words in them at all. I’m sure everyone here knows a silly song or two, or like me, parts of lots of them. They are hard to forget. There was a time that I tried to but now I have a granddaughter and they are coming back to me. When I try to sing anything but a lullaby or a silly song to her, she literally growls. [Critics!]

A lot of silly songs are children’s songs. I just bought a whole album of Burl Ives’ children’s songs just for “It’s written on the rainbow in letters made of gold. It’s written on the rainbow this wisdom to behold. … If you walk the streets, you will have no cares, if you walk the lines and not the squares. As you go through life make this your goal: watch the donut, not the hole.” Then there are songs from the album, “Peter, Paul, and Mommy,” “I’m being swallowed by a boa constrictor. ... Oh dread, oh dread. He's up to my [loud swallow]” Pete Seeger had a children’s story on one of his albums that included a silly song: “Way down south in the Yankety-Yank, a bullfrog jumped from bank to bank, just because he had nothing better for to do.”

As I grew up and went to youth camps, I learned many new songs that substituted the lyrics to well known songs: To "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" we sang “My eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school. … Us brats go marching on.” Instead of "On Top of Old Smoky," it was “On top of spaghetti all covered with cheese…” Then there were the new ones: The Mountain Dew song with verses like “My Auntie June bought a brand new perfume it had such a sweet smelling peu. To her surprise when she had it analyzed, it was some of that good ol’ Mountain Dew.”

Most of the silly songs are for a much older audience and amazingly aren’t all the products of comedians. Quite a few are for or to protest wars, promote or castigate drinking, or were created to help people get through some truly rough times like the great depression. Certainly some of the depression era songs promoted drinking in a way that lifted spirits, pun intended. I think that was the original source of some live music I heard at a Librarian Association Convention I attended early in my career: “The Occasional Drinker.” The “drinker” in this case only drank on two occasions: alone or with someone, daylight or darkness, with a meal or not, … The net result was that he was drinking all the time.

While many music artists may produce a “silly song,” such as: the Kingston Trio’s “MTA” or Merle Haggard’s “Rainbow Stew,” which may also have it’s origins in a depression era song, most are the product of musical or otherwise comedians. The Smothers Brothers were known for singing their comedy. My favorite one of theirs was the about the city girl who moved to the country and died of health.

While I dearly like Roger Miller’s “do-wacka-do” song, the one that the chorus goes: “Girls in the front, girls in the back, and further in the back is money in a sack. I wish I had your happiness and you had do-wacka-do.” Ray Stevens had quite a few hits: “Guitarzan,” “The Streak,” and “I am my own Grandpa.” You have to listen carefully but it is almost logical that “[He] is his own Grandpa.”

My current favorites are almost anything by the Arrogant Worms, true Canadian patriots out to popularize places in Canada like the Northern Ontario “Mounted Animal Nature Trail” or indeed all of Canada, currently number two in size with a shot at number one if Russia keeps on shrinking, unless Canada loses Quebec. But of theirs, I particularly like “History is made by Stupid People.” After a few examples they get into advising that “if you want to go down in history, do something dumb before you die.” It ends with “don’t worry if your children are playing video games and watching TV, at least they aren’t making history.”

From “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “Oh Susanna” through a long history of songs that make children of all ages smile or laugh right out loud, we are better off for all of this silliness, seriously.

Now that we are at the end of my augmented speech, you may also enjoy the following:

Arrogant Worms: "Jesus' Brother Bob"

Roger Miller: "Chug-a-lug"

Ray Stevens: "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival"