# "One-Ton Tomato" and other ruined songs **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 26, 2006, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363 "2006-08-26T21:54:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![h.sapiens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e0b2c6/32.png) [@h.sapiens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/h.sapiens)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2006, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/61 "2006-08-28T17:58:15Z")
In the mid-70s, Tom Lehrer did a song for “The Electric Company” to the tune of a famous song from “Rigoletto”: I’m a very quiet hound, I don’t bark or run around. I just lie here on the ground, With my head upon this mound. No-one knows where I can be found. If they did then they’d be bound To come and take me to the pound. That’s why I don’t make a sound! ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2006, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/62 "2006-08-28T18:16:52Z")
[QUOTE=rowrrbazzle] Rather than “Loooooooooove is a maaaaaany spleeeeeeendored thing” “Loooooooooove is a looooooooong and sleeeeeeeender thing”. [/QUOTE] I’ve never heard “Love is a many-splendored thing”. I’ve only heard the Sisters of Mercy song that contains the line “Love is a many- **splintered** thing”. So I guess if I ever hear the original it’ll be ruined for me. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2006, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/63 "2006-08-28T20:58:04Z")
“Love is a Many-Splendored Thing” was converted to “Love is a Many-Splintered Thing” for me when I saw a cartoon of Flo chasing Andy Capp with a cricket bat. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2006, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/64 "2006-08-28T21:29:18Z")
When I was in seventh grade, our class was studying Longfellow’s poem _The Song of Hiawatha_. I noticed that its meter was such that (given a few liberties) it could be sung to the tune of _The Marines’ Hymn_. To this day, I cannot hear “From the halls of Montezuma…” without thinking “By the shores of Gitchee Gumee…” ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2006, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/65 "2006-08-28T21:45:56Z")
[QUOTE=Yllaria] “The Irish Washer Woman” Damn. I had forgotten. Isaac Azimov once wrote an intro or essay in which he put the chemical paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde to that tune. [/QUOTE] This is the [anecdote](http://groups.google.com/group/sci.chem/msg/7f444c7511cb4df6). Someone sang it to him and he became obsessed with it. Later: > [@](#): > > I was standing at the desk of a … very pretty Irish receptionist … stirred that drumbeat memory in my mind, so that I sang in a soft voice (without even realizing what I was doing) PA-ruh-dy-METH-il-a-MEE-noh-ben-ZAL-duh-hide … through several rapid choruses. > > And the receptionist clapped her hands together in delight and cried out “Oh, my, you know it in the original Gaelic!” > > What could I do? I smiled modestly and had her announce me as Isaac O’Asimov. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2006, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/66 "2006-08-28T23:00:02Z")
[QUOTE=freckafree] Along the same lines, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” can be sung to the tune of “Hernando’s Hideaway,” so instead of “There IS…a DARK…se-clud-ed PLACE,” I always think, “Whose WOODS…these ARE…I think I KNOW.” [/QUOTE] To top it off, sing the version from the National Lampoon that spoiled that poem for me forever: _Whose woods these are I think I know; His house is in the village, though. He will not see me stopping here To write my name in yellow snow._ ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2006, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/67 "2006-08-28T23:37:13Z")
After I’d heard Kenny Rogers sing _Coward of the County_ too many times, I wrote: _Promise me, son, That you’ll bite your woman’s buns. Wear a two-day stubble when you can. Folks wont think you’re queer, If you have another beer. Damn right you have to drink to be a man._ An old friend was furious at me for doing that. He said if I laid a glove on _Two Story House,_ he’d strangle me. Allan Sherman warped _Imagination_ forever with _Automation_. _…There’s an IBM 503, Standing next to me, dear, where you used to be. Doesn’t have your smile, Doesn’t have your shape, Just a bunch of light bulbs, and punch cards, and tape…_ ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/68 "2006-08-29T03:32:07Z")
Flanders and Swann brilliantly ruined Mozart’s Fourth Horn Concerto forever: I once had a whim and I had to obey it To buy a French Horn in a second-hand shop I polished it up and I started to play it In spite of the neighbours who begged me to stop ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/69 "2006-08-29T04:05:40Z")
Spike Jones has ruined (sorry, _improved_) many classic songs. On occasion I am wont to dig out my Peter Lorre impression and perform this venerable favorite: _My old flame I can’t even think of her name… I’ll have to look through my collection of human heads._ :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/70 "2006-08-29T04:12:28Z")
Also, a good source for this sort of thing is Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs, in which he describes novel interpretations of incomprehensible lyrics. For instance, the Beach Boys’ _“Help Me Rhonda”_:\* Well since she put me down There’ve been owls pukin’ in my bed\* ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/71 "2006-08-29T07:08:14Z")
Well, I’m not one to talk. :o “Little Honda” by the Hondelles: _Her ears is all right_ “Doo wa dee diddy dum” (I’m not sure that’s right) by Manfred Mann \*Milwaukee, give me something to do" “The Call of the Wild Goose” by Frankie Laine _Father goose, mother goose, witch’s vest_ I could not understand the lyrics of “The Vatican Rag” by Tom Lehrer until a high-school friend of mine–who was Episcopalian–explained to me about the rite of communion and the Eucharist. (Words like “genuflect,” “kyrie eleison,” and “transubstantiate…”) ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/72 "2006-08-29T15:42:34Z")
Well, my, my, this here Anakin guy May be Vader some day later, now he’s just a small fry He left his home, and kissed his mommy goodbye Sayin’ “Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi” -Weird Al, c/o Don McLean ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/73 "2006-08-30T00:00:58Z")
[QUOTE=Eve] I always wanted to hire a jug band, dress up like Minnie Pearl, and sing Emily Dickinson to the tune of Yellow Rose of Texas: I’d call my show “The Cow-Belle of Amherst.” [/QUOTE] Ya know, Id probably pay to see that=) ---
**Author:** ![Chef\_Troy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/74 "2006-08-30T00:16:23Z")
Susan Tedeschi does a blues song called [Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean](http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/clipserve/B000003A1E001009/0/ref=mu_sam_wma_001_009/102-0143648-3060938) (the link goes to an [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) excerpt from the song). The chorus is mostly the following line, repeated: _Mama - he treats your daughter so mean…_ Mrs. Chef and I were on a trip when I played that song for her. She started singing, “Mama - he treats the dinosaur mean…” And of course, as soon as she said that, it was all I could hear Tedeschi say. In fact, I came up with a whole set of Flintstones-based alternate lyrics to the song. To this day all I can hear is “dinosaur.” Damn you, Mrs. Chef! ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/75 "2006-08-30T00:19:00Z")
[QUOTE=aruvqan] Ya know, Id probably pay to see that=) [/QUOTE] Hope is the thang with fay-thers H’it parches in yer so-wul An’ sangs a tune that ain’t got wards An’ niver stops at awl. Yee-haw! Play that dang pianner, Jed! The complete songbook [here.](http://www.bartleby.com/113) ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/76 "2006-08-30T00:28:33Z")
“Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart You’re shaking my carpet with bay leaves.” “The doorbell chimed, it rang several times, I said ‘Would you get that, Edmund, it’s Gerald!’” ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/77 "2006-08-30T01:02:22Z")
Eve beat me to the Toreador song on Gilligan’s Island and twickster beat me to the “Kill the Wabbit!” song. Everytime the Ice Cream truck drives by and plays “Turkey in the Straw” I have to sing “Do your boobs hang low? Do they wobble to and fro…”, unfortunately I can’t remember the rest of the words. I can’t hear Aerosmith’s “Love in an Elevator” without it becoming “Lovin’ An Alligator”. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/78 "2006-08-30T01:13:57Z")
[QUOTE=Wile E] Everytime the Ice Cream truck drives by and plays “Turkey in the Straw” I have to sing “Do your boobs hang low? Do they wobble to and fro…”, unfortunately I can’t remember the rest of the words. [/QUOTE] Do your boobs hang low? Do they wobble to and fro? Can you tie 'em in a knot, Can you tie 'em in a bow? Can you throw 'em over your shoulder Like a Continental soldier? Do your boobs hang low? ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/79 "2006-08-30T02:50:47Z")
Oh dear, my family does a lot of these… \* People… People who eat people… Are the hungriest people in the world! One person, one very tasty person… A feeling deep in your soul, Says you are no longer whole! No more hunger and thirst, but first be a person who eats people…\* Some old song called “Jealousy” gets turned into: \*Leprosy! Oh my god I’ve got leprosy! There goes my eyeball Into your highball… Leprosy! Oh my god I’ve got leprosy! There goes my ear Into your beer… \* Actually, this one could very well be a Spike Jones song–it sounds like him, but all I know is that my mom used to sing it to us. _Sunshine… On my choda makes me happy… But a dildo up my ass will make me cry…_ ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363/80 "2006-08-30T02:58:01Z")
This land’s not your land, This land is my land. I’ve got a shotgun And you aint’ got one. I’ll blow your head off If you don’t get off. This land is private properteeee… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-ton-tomato-and-other-ruined-songs/370363.md?page=5)