Hilarious novelty song.
I have never ever heard those lines, not even in old movies.
It is satire about bigots.
[(Short people are just the same as you and I.)
A fool such as I.
(All men are brothers until the day they die.)
It’s a wonderful world.
I mean you have to understand it.
I found a cite that claims it has the original and it is “banjo serenader”.
Ko-Ko.
There’s the banjo serenader, and the others of his race,
And the piano-organist — I’ve got him on the list!
Goot one for yours?
My copy of W.S. Complete Operas by W.S. Gilbert, published in 1932, has it the way I quoted it.
Wikisource shows it the way I quoted it. According to Wikipedia, it referred to blackface minstrelry, and was reworded for an American tour of the D’Oyly Carte company in 1948.
It gets worse:
BIANCA & SUITORS:
A dicka dick,
A dicka dick,
Even funnier given Cole Porter’s proclivities.
I’ve got the Josephine version and the Nuts Hunt the squirrels sequel recorded from a WBCN rare tape night around 1972. Also a comedy single about a guy doing a Jerry Lewis bit about people coming to your door to ask for donations to fight the “Big N” - necrophilia.
As for the pronunciation of lied, all you need to remember is Tom Lehrer:
“As someone once remarked to Schubert
Take me to your lieder.”
Tom T. Hall had a hit in 1975 with his paean to alcohol conviviality I Like Beer.
In 2021 Hall died of a self-inflicted gunshot, while under drug therapy for anxiety and alcoholism. In an unfortunate coincidence, this was the 1975 sleeve art:
Another song from The Mikado originally had the lyrics:
The lady who dyes a chemical yellow
Or stains her grey hair puce
Or pinches her figure
Is blacked like a n——r
With permanent walnut juice
Later productions changed the last two lines to
Is painted with vigor
And permanent walnut juice
which also adds some very Gilbertian zeugma.
Ah, memories of BCN.
Like Stuart, by The Dead Milkmen.
John Mulaney talks about how to make a song socially unacceptable, at least to a specific group of people…
Since someone has mentioned the novelty hit “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” by Napoleon XIV…
how about the novelty hit “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me
(than have to have a frontal lobotomy)” by Randy Hanzlick MD?
Which was referenced in Existential Blues by Tom “T-Bone” Stankus.
I just read the lyrics, why would that song be objectionable? I don’t think most people would want a frontal lobotomy.
So, anything about sex is “problematic”? I wonder when the human population will die out.
Around 100 of the responses here are posters extremely reaching for anything they could conceivably find offense in or be offended on behalf of someone (who probably doesn’t need or want anyone being offended on their behalf), as well as obvious satire and stuff advocating the modernly correct POV, rather than content that actually endorses reprehensible behavior. And I find a lot of the comments about things being sexist are actually sexist themselves because they try to remove agency from women and make blanket statements about sex/love, etc.
And yet, it was practically the theme tune of Mermaids (Cher, Bob Hoskins, Winona Ryder), wasn’t it? That was 1990. Maybe they cleaned up the lyrics a bit.
[Moderating]
@actualliberalnotoneofthose , if you don’t want to take part in a thread, it’s really simple: You just don’t take part. That’s a lot easier than threadshitting.
oh… I just listened to a “fun” one … and headed for the lyrics - for your reading pleasure:
Nat King Cole and Dean Martín
[Verse 3: Dean Martin, Nat King Cole , Both ]
Let’s hear it, Nat
You know what, you know what, though (What?)
There’s just one way to handle a woman (Mhm)
Dean, we just got to treat 'em rough
You gotta slap 'em (That’s right )
We gotta show 'em who wears the pants
Cut out that sissy, sissy stuff (Mhm )
Now it ain’t no use to take abuse
Whenever they are cranky or cross
Let’s put the women in their place
And we’ll show them who’s the boss
would not fly today 
I have heard this one on the radio, along with many other ballads singing the praises of the Devil’s dandruff. For example, there is an Eric Clapton song that is straight up called “Cocaine”. Every song by Buckcherry is about cocaine except for that one song that is about a stripper… on cocaine.
There is also “Semi-Charmed Life” which is a very upbeat pop tune that gets played on the radio every day. This song is a loving tribute to and contains lyrics about crystal meth.
Oh, heck, high school marching bands have played “Cocaine” and, for that matter, “Tequila”, because of the catchy tunes.
The one thing I know about Buckcherry is that VH-1 created a show in the 00s just to give one of their videos a forum for airplay. I figured that out pretty fast.
p.s. This is, to my knowledge, the only song ever to appear in the American Top 40 that is about an inflatable sex doll. The year was 1979.
I’m pretty sure I saw it on MTV, and I did not watch Night Flight. Anyway, it should be noted that THQ’sGaG was not entirely acceptable on radio. “I mean, it was like the whole school was totally coked or something!” was changed to “I mean, it made me really proud to be a teenager!” And “Are you having a really bad period?!” was changed to “You’ll get suspended if you don’t quit it!”
Has anyone mentioned “Having My Baby” yet? Although I think that might have ground some gears even when it was new. I remember a friend of mine telling me, back in the '90s, about browsing a record-geek store with his then-SO, telling her, “If you see something, put it in my basket,” then saying “Not this!” when she added “Having My Baby”. “I’m surprised at you for wanting to own that!” They both would have been teenagers when it was new, FTR.
“Having My Baby” more or less became socially unacceptable as soon as it fell off the charts because it was, to quote the late Chicago DJ Larry Lujack, “a godawful piece of crap.” Somehow that song spent three weeks at #1 in the summer of 1974 even though no one ever admitted to buying–or even liking–the record. Since then, not even the most desperate oldies stations have it on their playlists.