Well.
It’s about freakin’ time you showed up!
Last time, it took him three chapters!
People were not quite as paranoid back then. It’s a joke, not thinly veiled child molestation. Not to mention it is clear that Leonard Ivey is just fine, there is no searching party, no alligators in the lakes, and no coach reading Ulysses.
Not to mention our kids listened to that show all the time (my eldest did a series of factory tours for her) and even thinking it is Joyce I had no qualms about them listening to it. You could turn me in to CPS but it’s a bit late - both kids are married now.
I searched for something related to a scandal concerning these lyrics. I got the lyrics, one site that mentioned Joyce first but thought it referred to the Tennyson poem because it was dark, some long discussion in The Guardian which had nothing to do with the subject, and this thread. Perhaps you’ll be more successful in finding someone besides you who things this is awful.
:eek: Child abuse and sibling incest?! You MONSTER!!
Yes, I’m aware of Tom Leher, and also aware that he recorded albums and gave live performances for a very adult and sophisticated audience…and that nothing he released came anywhere near the Billboard Top 40 charts.
Are you arguing that if one of these songs was released as a single (as “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” was) with the goal of widespread radio play, that no one would have batted an eye?
Seriously?
I’ve gone over this several times, but let’s try again, using my sequence:
Bad weather (true and observable by Alan)
Poison ivy (true and observable by Alan)
Food poisoning (exaggeration; no doubt a kid got sick, as kids away at camp will do if they have delicate stomachs, but it’s unlikely he has ptomaine poisoning, or more would have it)
Dangerous animals (imagination fueled by older campers’ taunts)
Boring literature (true and experienced by Alan)
Malaria (obvious exaggeration)
Disappearance (true, but it’s not at all uncommon at summer camp for a child to wander off to somewhere he’s not supposed to be)
Now, your sequence:
Bad weather
Poison ivy
Food poisoning
Dangerous animals
Child-inappropriate material
Malaria
Disappearance
Given that four items on this list are exaggerated products of Allan’s imagination, the bold item doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb to you? And why would you assume that a child is going to write a perfectly composed letter, carefully making certain that all the elements are in exact ascending order of horror? This seems like a stretch to me for an 8- to 10-year-old kid.
My position all along has been that under my scenario, Allan:
• writes a letter detailing experiences that are either true, or at least true to him when filtered through his overactive imagination
• doesn’t have to lie about what the coach did (nor face what would be extremely severe consequences once his lie is found out, which he absolutely would)
• doesn’t have to be aware of a book that the average 8- to 10-year-old would have no knowledge of
• doesn’t have to make a connection between “wants no sissies” and Joyce’s Ulysses. (I’ve asked repeatedly for someone…anyone…to make this connection. Not a single soul in this thread has done so.)
And I’ve said — repeatedly — that there is no requirement that every single couplet in this song be screamingly funny. Each line only has to be another complaint added to the ones that have come before as Allan makes his case for being removed from an environment he’s not happy in. It’s called “advancing the narrative.”
How knee-slappingly funny, for example, is “I promise I will not make noise, or muss the house with other boys”?
Uh, yeah, a BIG stretch. I’ve detailed several reasons why it doesn’t make sense, and Homer or Tennyson makes more sense. I’ve also said that this notion crosses over the line from funny to creepy, quite unnecessarily.
As I’ve shown, under my scenario, none of it has to be lies. At most, all that’s required is a child’s imagination.
If you got a letter from your child at camp, you too (like Allan’s parents) would put everything he said into perspective. You would realize that there was no ptomaine poisoning, no bears in the woods or alligators in the lake, no malaria and no disappearing children. Are you saying that knowing that your child was being read to from Joyce’s Ulysses wouldn’t rise to the top of that list?
I’m providing an alternate interpretation of the narrative and the joke that doesn’t require jumping through a whole series of hoops and leaving unanswered questions.
I will now reveal my ignorance and subject myself to derision by the many learned participants on this board when I state that, until now, I had never once considered Joyce’s work as being the subject of that couplet.
I certainly know who James Joyce is, and even, right after graduating high school, attempted (quite unsuccessfully) to wade my way through Finnegans Wake. Beyond this, I’m sorry to say I have not devoted large portions of my life to the study of his works.
Somehow, despite wallowing in this ignorance, I have managed all these years to still find “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” to be a quite funny and enjoyable work — without once having to resort to the hilarious notion that its narrative includes an adult reading pornographic (not to mention incomprehensible) literature to 8- to 10-year-olds.
And you know what? Though there’s no way of proving this, I would bet that of the total universe of listeners who helped propel Sherman’s song to #2 on the charts, there are more like me than like all of you here.
You still don’t get it. Ulysses is not so much child inappropriate as human inappropriate. It’s reputation as a dirty book is a joke to adults. The very thought of a camp coach reading Ulysses aloud is funny. The idea that the kid thinks it’s equivalent to pornography is funny. Every line in the song is there because they are funny, and not in any way, shape, or form considered to be realistic because the kid is making it all up.
Yes they would…because they would immediately realize that these three items were not literal, but products of the child’s imagination.
The child would have a much harder time “imagining” (i.e., lying) about being read to from Joyce. You can’t “imagine” you’re being read to, and he’s being very specific about what that reading matter is. But in order for it to be Joyce in the context of this song, Allan has to first be aware of the book (which I find unlikely). Then, there are two options: either this really happened, which is monstrous, or Allan is telling a bald-faced lie that will be found out, with serious consequences for him to follow.
And I’ve posited a scenario where he doesn’t have to “make up” any bullshit at all.
If you truly are ignorant, then you don’t have to “feign” it. I believe an 8- to 10-year-old being ignorant of James Joyce’s Ulysses is far more plausible than him having knowledge of it.
i wish we could find this out definitively. I will gladly bow to evidence of Sherman stating unequivocally that he had Joyce in mind when he wrote the lines in question (as opposed to someone assuming that he did).
There is at least one biography and one autobiography for Allan Sherman. Alas, Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature only covers the first few pages of the former, and has nothing for the latter at all. Does anyone own either of these books?
What I get is that, in order to accept the Joyce interpretation, you have to make several leaps and ignore a whole lot of stuff — which everyone in this thread has proven to be extremely adept at.
In my scenario, there is not a requirement that every single line in the song be funny (I’ve pointed out some that are not). I’ve also shown that the song works just fine without the requirement that Allan be making anything up at all, and without the requirement that he have any knowledge about Joyce’s Ulysses — knowledge that no one has convinced me it’s likely he would have.
In the end, all most of you have is “It’s just comedy…it doesn’t have to make sense.” But a great deal of comedy works just fine while also making perfect sense.
This is very cool, dudes, the best thread I have started.
Thanks for the fascinating dialogue.
It’s option 2, obviously, because the song does not work with the third interpretation.
And I have a feeling you know that, because of this -
As you recognize, if Sherman had been talking about reading from The Odyssey, this would not have been at all shocking or inappropriate. And therefore would make no sense in the context of the song.
The whole song is concocted on the premise that it is a letter from camp from a miserable, first-time camper who is trying to find something shocking enough to cause his parents to bring him home. Hence all the talk about malaria and alligators and search parties, and about reading from what was considered at the time to be wildly inappropriate material for children.
It makes no sense to mention it if it is not another attempt to appall his parents. Since he does mention it, and since he makes specific reference to the book entitled Ulysses and not to the work by Homer entitled The Odyssey and whose lead character is named Odysseus, it is clear that the reference is to the first and not the second.
And this is reinforced by the second song. He chooses Lenny Bruce exactly because he is known for blue humor which is inappropriate for children. And again, if Lenny Bruce did a modified act which was appropriate, it would make no sense to mention it in the context of a list of “Things That Should Reinforce My Plea to Be Brought Home”.
Regards,
Shodan
Let’s start with this. A great deal more comedy works by not making sense. Incongruity with reality is the heart of comedy. These lines aren’t punchlines following a long setup, it’s a relatively short song parody by an artist known for song parodies, so each line had to be humorous, and they are. There is no intention for it to make sense in the way you describe, nor would listeners consider it that way.
It requires leaps by you to maintain this argument. Your basic premise is that there is something funny or sensible about the coach reading the Odyssey to the kids. That makes no sense, nor is it funny. Coaches are not known for using literature in any rational way, if at all. A coach reading to the kids about anything sensible does not strike opposing chords that make something funny, it would actually just be sad. That a coach was reading a book that most people can’t make their way through in the first place is funny. Added to that is the censoring of that book for no apparent reason, there was more prurient interest in the Sears catalog than in Ulysses. If not for the censors the book would be more obscure than the Tennyson’s Ulysses. The book reference was a joke in itself, it was not smut, it was a fool’s errand to read the book looking for the porn. The realistic part is the coach not wanting sissies, a word that rhymes with Ulysses but also adds the uncomfortable allusion to homosexuality, also something the kid may not understand, which doesn’t matter because it’s not about a real kid, that line in particular is directed at adults or near adults who have some idea what the book is.
This shows the greatest leap you are taking, that Allan Sherman, a talented comedian was intending to produce a serious song parody and accidently created something funny. Stop and think about that for a while.
He would get the same consequences he faced if they found out he was lying about alligators and missing campers.
Regards,
Shodan
Would a kid the age of the letter-writer have a clear idea of what pornography is? All he would know about Ulysses is that it’s “bad” in some way. He might even be thinking “It’s a book for grown-ups; sissies are babies, so the coach reads us a grown-up book,” while having only a vague idea of what pornography is, or why Ulysses is bad.
For those insisting on being literal-minded, that is.
This never happened. It’s just funny. It doesn’t matter what book Sherman had in mind. Maybe he didn’t have any book in mind. He could have thought that whether people assumed it was Joyce or Tennyson, they’d still find it funny, therefore, “something called ‘Ulysses’” was all he needed to write to complete the joke. Heck, maybe there is a biography of former Pres. Grant out there called “Ulysses,” and Sherman thought “Heck, even if the listener thinks of that book, still funny.” So he left the line as it was, without further elucidation.
Personally, I would still vote for Joyce in a poll, though, because Tennyson’s poem is too short to be published on its own, and the description “He reads to us from something called Ulysses” doesn’t fit a short poem.
I’ve written a few humorous poem parodies and lots of humor columns. In the short form the idea that Sherman would put in a clunker line is just dumb. Every line in a humorous song either has to be funny or has to set up the funny line that is coming.
Period.
One of the funny things about the song is that it is self-contradictory. It is clearly raining out, and the kid is cooped up and unhappy on his first day. But if all the campers have to stay inside no one could get poison ivy or lost in the woods. So none of the stuff happened.
As for the kid telling lies, he admits it telling his parents to disregard the letter. And I doubt many parents would get upset, just laugh at how over the top it is.
As for Sherman accidentally writing a funny song - this was actually fairly late in his career. His first, “My Son the Folksinger” sold zillions of copies. My parents had one, everyone’s parents I knew had one. He was a master of the form.
While you’re entirely correct in your assessment, Shodan, I must chime in that the your last paragraph kinda undercuts its own point. In the Granada Redux song of which you speak, Allan wants to stay. He’s a veteran now, and knows how much fun he can have (particularly since he brought along his own supply of, errr, “fresh meat”).
In fact, maybe we can have another thread, discussing whether Allan might be working against his own perceived interests in the sequel song.
I nominate DChord568 to defend the proposition that he wants to go home.
Here’s my argument. Tom Leher was not only a successful entertainer on the club circuit, who released albums with the songs I mentioned, he was also a regular performer on the NBC 1964-1965 That Was the Week That Was.
Leher performed – on prime-time TV, mind you – a variety of satirical songs written specifically for the show, including Alma, a eulogy to Alma Mahler, best known for having famous artists fall in love with her; Smut, which includes the line “Por-Nographic pictures I adore. Indecent magazines galore. I like them more if they’re hard core.”
Plus various songs about politics and religion that offended various people, all on prime-time television (four years before Petula Clark touching Harry Belafonte’s arm on prime time raised a stink and five years before the Smothers Brothers were canceled.)
Conclusion: Tom Leher singing about “Por-nographic pictures” and Alma Mahler’s sex life in prime time more than beats Allan Sherman’s minor allusion to James Joyce on a 45 rpm single. Particularly when some people obviously believed Sherman must have been referencing Tennyson.
It also includes the line “I have a hobby, it’s re-reading Lady Chatterley!” This is clearly a reference to Virgil’s Aeneid, and the name Chatterley is used only because Lehrer needed a rhyme for “philately.”
That is part of the funny. The kid doesn’t know the difference between Ulysses and a Playboy magazine, and his parents know that and understand that it’s childish reasoning. For kids who don’t understand that at all it’s just a funny line that rhymes ‘sissies’, which is a funny word with funny connotations to most kids, and ‘Ulysses’ which is just a funny word. Some group of people who believe Ulysses is some type of smut find it funny because the idea is outrageous. And people who do know something about Ulysses also get that the joke’s on the kid, Ulysses ain’t all that dirty and he’ll find it out the hard way some day just like they did.
I cannot believe I’m gonna wade back in, but…here goes.
No, it doesn’t stick out. All of the items in the list are lies, save probably the rain. There’s no poison ivy, no missing child, no food poisoning. It’s all lies. That’s part of the joke.
A child would not write a perfectly composed, sequentially-ordered letter. A child did not. A 39-year-old professional comedian did. Professional comedians are known for paying close attention to the escalating order of joke lists and are not known for paying nearly as much attention to a setup as you are here.
It’s been alluded to, but here it is in short: the coach is reading them a “dirty book” to make them more manly. Even though Ulysses isn’t a hugely dirty book, that’s the rep it had and that’s the joke being made. It’s the equivalent idea of a guy giving a kid a copy of a racy magazine so they don’t grow up gay (sissy). This was a known concept / cliche, even in the straight-laced 60s. Yes, it’s a somewhat esoteric reference for a kid to make. Again, a kid didn’t REALLY make it. This is the most adult joke in the song, and it’s there to get a titter from the folks who need a little dash of subtle-ish blue humor.
But if you NEED to have internal logic, it’s not that far off from a kid telling his parents they were showing R-rated movies at a birthday party he didn’t want to go to. I knew a kid who did that.
It’s a weird, not-that-perfect couplet because it’s hard to rhyme Ulysses, and Ulysses is the joke.
It crosses the line from clean to blue, quite deftly and quickly, before reigning back in. This is a thing in comedy.
Here’s the thing – I don’t think you’re crazy or a dummy. I had the same interpretation of the song as you for years and thought it was a dumb line. Until this thread, I’d never even considered Joyce’s novel. In light of the many, many things pointed out in this thread about the book, its reputation, the relative obscurity of other Ulysses-titled works, and the fact that Joyce makes a GOOD JOKE and the other options simply don’t…yeah, it’s absolutely, 100% a reference to Joyce. And a funny one.