You believe Feynman on anything? 
I believe Gell-Mann
BTW, that also substantiates my argument in the linked thread.
Wasn’t his backup group the James Joyce singers?
Seconded.
Feynman is an important physicist, but something of a self-deluded nut when it comes to history.
Here’s Gell-Man’s own words from his own book. (page 180, if the link doesn’t work)
Interesting thread because there’s a quite well known French song with exactly the same concept (apocalyptic summer camp described by a kid in a letter to his parents) and there has been a controversy about whether the singer had plagiarized the idea of another, extremely obscure, French singer.
This thread brings the response. The obscure French singer registered his version in 1964, the famous French singer released his in 1966. “Camp Granada” was released in 1963. It’s obvious now were both get their idea.
That was pointed out earlier.
It’s an argument in favor of Joyce, but on Homer’s side some people may think the Sirens were sometimes called the Ulysses singers, so it’s a wash.
Fenris et al, Gell-Mann? Are you talking about the Creature from the Black Lagoon, because not many people would not recognize Gell-Mann and might interpret that as Gill Man.
American International did a cheap knock-off using Gell-Mann, The Beast with 20,000 Nobel Prizes.
And Lenny Bruce did Murray the Monster, a follow up to Heshie the Monster.
I realize this thread has been dormant for some time but, as a Sherman fan of over 50 yrs I feel it important enough to make this small addition to my normally minimal web-footprint. I could be wrong…
I’ve read the first 3 pgs & skimmed the rest. The crux of the argument seems to be whether or not it was possible AS was making a reference to Tennyson or Homer rather than James Joyce. Yes, it is possible. No, it isn’t plausible.
You can’t approach the topic from a lofty academic plateau a half-century after the fact. It needs to be examined in light of the contemporary culture of the early 60s, the career of Mr Sherman and the audience for which his work was intended.
First of all, Allan Sherman was only incidentally a writer of comedic songs. He was a successful comedy writer and game-show producer (enough so to live in Beverly Hills.) His songs were a sideline, more of a hobby than anything else. He wrote them for his own amusement & used to sing them for his friends at at parties, reportedly to great effect. When you consider that his friends were the likes of Harpo Marx and George Burns, the picture should become a little clearer.
Mr Sherman didn’t believe his little parodies had any possible appeal beyond the insular crowd of comedians & industry folk he was singing them for. He had to be persuaded otherwise. He was more or less dragged into it kicking & screaming, and nobody was more surprised than he that his albums met with success. He wasn’t writing them for the general public; to the contrary, he was astounded that the general public had any interest at all.
Even so, he didn’t embark on a new career. Making comedy albums was more in the nature of picking up beer & cigarette money on the side. He was still vetting his tunes past the same people he’d originally been singing them for.
A reference to Homer or Tennyson wasn’t likely to bring a chuckle to Harpo Marx. A reference to a “dirty book” would have done so. A reference to some dumb jock lummox reading salacious material to his wards in hopes of inoculating them against latent homosexuality would’ve been all the more likely to spark hilarity.
Obscenity was in the public consciousness, certainly that of the entertainment industry. Roth v. US was still a topic of discussion (Tom Lehrer used it as the basis for his song “Smut” around the same time - it doesn’t seem at all unlikely that he may have influenced AS or vice versa.)
Ulysses had long been known as a “dirty” book. Sherman’s friends would have understood at once. He wouldn’t have expected children to get it. And Allan Sherman was a comedic genius; as a lyricist he was a master craftsman. He wouldn’t have been reaching for a rhyme. Try listening to the rest of his work. In “Horowitz”:
Yesterday I took my girlfriend Peggy
To watch him play a concert at Carnegie
or “America’s A Nice Italian Name”:
America to me is not so foreign
Of course, you hava no got Sophia Loren
and
The queen, she said Columbus, poochie-woochie
If you should land in some new land
Please name it for Americus Vespucci
'cause he's a nice Italian man
If you call that reaching for rhymes, then he more or less made a career of it. That sort of rhyme permeates virtually everything he wrote.
Remember, he worked in television. He didn’t expect the general public to pick up references to Tennyson; he expected the general public to respond to humor along the lines of The Beverly Hillbillies. He wasn’t writing for them. He was writing contemporary humor for a very select group. James Joyce was a pertinent contemporary reference in light of the Supreme Court decision. Tennyson or Homer weren’t pertinent at all.
Is it possible Sherman was referring to Tennyson? Certainly, we can’t disprove it. Of course, it’s also possible he didn’t write the songs at all but cribbed them from a notebook Francis Bacon left behind on his visit to the future. We can’t disprove that either. But the latter’s not all that much more implausible than the former.
I was also going to address someone’s comment on age-inappropriate material in Mad magazine but this has gone on far too long already. Just Google the cover of the December 1963 issue (#83). And remember that Harvey Kurtzman &/or Bill Gaines was/were almost single-handedly responsible for the necessity of creating the Comics Code. E.C. is usually considered the primary culprit.
docmem, although my initial internal reaction upon finding that this thread had been resurrected was a :smack: that was probably heard across the street, now that I have read your contribution, I simply wish to offer you the heartiest of welcomes to the SDMB (and not just because your conclusion is in agreement with mine)!
I anticipate great things from you, and I hope we are collectively able to rise to your expectations. 
Hah, same here.
Especially since this post gave us this beaut:
Bra-vo.
As the OP of this thread, I also want to welcome you and your contribution…even tho you’re wrong.
To all:
muy muchas gracias, merci beaucoups, bolshoye spasibo, domo arigato, dankeschoen, etc
I appreciate the sentiment, but this forum is probably a bit too public for comfort. I’ve been active in a few small, insular forums but there’s a lot of folks who read this one. That’s not really compatible with a minimal web footprint.
Plus, I got a lot on my plate now with health issues, a comp rebuild n’ me mum’s less than 48 hrs away from becoming a centenarian. Expectations I don’t mind, but we’ll see…
As for the forum meeting my own, this thread’s the 1st that ever disappointed, thus prompting me to comment. Save for silliness, of course, which is its own justification. No probs there.
I thought maybe that was a tad strong, esp from a noob. But once ya get rollin’…
You are quite correct. I made several notable errors. Mr Sherman did not reside in Beverly Hills but in West Hollywood. Maybe only off by a matter of a mile or so and still a nice neighborhood, but nonetheless inaccurate.
And he did in fact later attempt (by and large unsuccessfully) to make a career out of his songs, though this was prompted by the reception of his little ditty enumerating the excesses at Camp Granada and after the fact.
At least I got the part right about his definitively referencing in the lyric a lesser w*rk by the author of Finnegans Wake… 
btw - Tom Lehrer & Mad Magazine have already been mentioned but for those with any interest, another resource containing satirical lyrics from the same era can be found at
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/FSM/fsm5.html
sadly, they don’t seem to have the lyric sheet which I possibly misremember being annotated; I suppose I could go downstairs n’ rummage around n’ find it but that sounds like too much bother…
What is it with these guys and their hair, lately? When did Il Douche go from dull brown to electric orange? And SSteve Miller and his spray on? Rudy get monkey gland implants? And here’s a recent shot of Lou Duhbs…
(Courtesy of Crooks and Liars)
Sure, whatever, change your hair color, why not. But I can’t get past thinking they expect us not to notice.
I thought I was posting to Stupid R thread. Fuhgedaboutit.