I used to listen to Dr. Demento as a kid, and he’d play silly songs that were L.A.-specific. The one I still hum (in fragments) goes something like:
“Pico and Sepulvida, Pico and Sepulvida…la la la…(I don’t know what comes next)…La Breaaaa - TAR PITS!”
It goes on from there, listing many streets and areas of LA. I just find myself chanting “Pico and Sepulvida” a lot. Does anyone else know this song?
Indeed.
“Hercules, he’s a big fat phony
Hercules, made of cheese and baloney
Fighting for his life
With a rubber knife
With the strength of ten
Microscopic men… Oh, Hercules…”
(Repeat until someone whacks you in the head.)
My current operating theory for the longevity and ubiquity of these things is morphic resonance. Morphic resonance or spontaneous combustion. Or perhaps it’s the spores.
I wrote that Hercules parody at ten. A thousand kids, with minor regional differences, did too. Memes are the weeds of the brain. An altenative theory, proposed to me by a poet of the female persuasion this evening, is that children, like poets, are attuned to some group mind the rest of us don’t have access to. That’s as likely, but a lot less… elegant.
Never under estimate the power of denial!
To believe the proven untrue is to
refashion fractious reality
along aesthetic lines.
This one isn’t really any good anymore, with the violence in school and all:
Glory glory hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Met her at the door
With a loaded .44
She ain’t my teacher no more.
Or this one (to Row, Row, Row Your Boat):
Marijuana, Marijuana
LSD, LSD
Scientist make it
Teachers take it
Why can’t we? Why can’t we?
Or a couple of Christmas ones:
Jimgle Bells, Shotgun Shells
Santa Clause is dead.
Rudolph got a .22 and
Shot him in the head.
We three kings of Orient are,
Puffing on a rubber cigar.
It was loaded,
It exploaded! BAM!
We two kings of Orient are…
The old Burger King commercial:
Fuck the pickles,
Fuck the lettuce,
Shut up lady,
You upset us,
All we ask is that you let us shove it your way.
You know, I used to sing all these songs when I was a kid. Now, a couple decades later, I find myself thinking, “If I heard a child at school singing about shooting his teacher and burning the place down, I’d be surprised if the police weren’t contacted.”
How times have changed.
Strangers in the night
exchanging rubbers
this one is too tight
get me another
this one is too loose
it won’t hold my juuuuuice.
Sick.
Jingle bells, Batman smells,
Robin laid an egg!
Batmobile, lost a whell,
and Joker got away, hey!
I’ve been thinking about starting this thread for months…
Our version of the “Glory, Glory Hallelujah” song had “Met her at the door with a Magnum .44” instead. And yes, I’d imagine nobody can sing that one anymore.
In college (yeah, I know, not exactly childhood, but still) at Ohio State, we have a rather nice version of “Hail to the Victors”–Michigan’s fight song.
There’s more, but I was really drunk when I learned it.
Hey Conner -
The animated Batman show did a Christmas episode a few years ago. The Joker sang the childhood classic you mentioned (Jingle bells, Batman smells…) I really enjoyed that.
I’m looking over my dead dog Rover
Who I killed with the power mower
One leg is missing, another one’s gone
The third leg is scattered all over the lawn
No need explaining the last leg remaining
It’s rolling on the carport floor
I’m looking over my dead dog Rover
Who I overlooked before
What does it say about me that I remember the lyrics to a stupid childhood song, but I can’t remember my own phone number?
Over here in http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=33699, I posted a parody we used to sing in high school, only tweeked for the board.
Sing the following to the tune of the Notre Dame fight song. If you need the tune, click here and then click on victory march.
Beer! Beer for Straight Doper High!
Bring out the whiskey, bring out the rye!
Send Ed Zotti out for gin and don’t let a sober lurker in!
We never stumble, we never fall!
We sober up on wood alcohol!
While the Doper faculity lies drunk on their homeroom floor!
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da!
Old Fart, here…it says long term memory is alive and well - you’ve got a LOT of company!
Here’s my local version of Rover:
I’m looking over my dead dog Rover
Who lies on the kitchen floor
One leg is broken, the other is lame
He got run over by a Cocoa Puffs train
No use explaining the two remaining
'cause he’s not alive any more…
I’m looking over my dead dog rover(and there might’ve been a last verse, but that brain cell’s not firing)
Now I was a kid in the early 60s…this is a rhyme my Grandmother told me she and her friends used to say …probably around 1915 or so:
“Matthew, Mark, Luke and John…hold the horse til I get on.”
Then she looked at my brother and I sheepishly and said “maybe I ought’nt have told you that”
WHOA, IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?? i JUST NOTICED THESE POSTS ARE ELEVEN YEARS OLD!!
So, here’s our High School theme song:
Cheers, cheers for old Northport High
You bring the whisky I’ll bring the rye
Send the Sophmores out for gin
and don’t let a sober SEEN-IOR IN!
We never stumble, we never fall
we sober up on wood alchohol
While the loyal faculty lies drunk on the barroom floor
Only one I can think of at the moment, that hasn’t already been posted:
To the tune of ‘Another Brick in the Wall’
We don’t need sex education,
We don’t need no birth control…
There was a lot more, but we were in, what…5th grade? At that time, mid-70’s, parents were still protesting sex education in the schools. We just thought it was funny, probably because we didn’t have it until later that year.
BTW, side rail…what’s with having sex ed in 5th grade and then never again? I loved the Chicago-area school system, and it was by far a more educational experience than I got anywhere else <moved at 16, continued out West> but geez. I learned all that at 10 years old; by the time I needed it I couldn’t remember squat!
My high school colours were gold and blue, and our school song started off with, “Give a cheer for the good old gold and blue…”
There was also a beer, popular locally, that was called Golden.
So you can imagine what we sang at football games: “Give a cheer for the good old Golden brew…”
It may be an old thread, but it was fun to read!
Joy to the world,
The teacher’s dead!
We barbequed her head!
What happened to her body?
We flushed it down the potty,
And round and round it goes,
And round and round it goes.
Deck the halls with gasoline!
Fa la la la la la la la la
Light a match, and watch it gleam!
Fa la la la la la la la la
Watch the school burn down to ashes!
Fa la la la la la la la la
Aren’t you glad you played with matches?
Fa la la la la la la la la
On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my (true?) meatball,
When somebody sneezed.
It rolled off the table,
And onto the floor.
And then my poor meatball,
Rolled right out the door.
It rolled in the garden,
And under a bush,
And now my poor meatball,
Is nothing but moosh.
So if you love meatballs,
All covered with cheese,
Hold on to your meatball,
And don’t ever sneeze.
Mad Magazine Xmas Carols!
(to the tune of It Came upon a Midnight Clear)
It hangs down from the chandelier,
We have no idea what it does!
Its’ shape is weird and it drips with goo
And lets off a high-sounding buzz.
It grows a couple of feet each day
And wiggles with kind of a twitch.
We keep it 'cause it’s a present from
A visiting uncle who’s rich…
I saw <insert name here> floating down the Delaware
Riding with a polar bear
Chewing on his underwear
…something something something…
I remember the “something something something…” as being “six days later they wish they had another pair and that’s how the polar bear died.”
I was six when my sister told me this little rhyme that was 41 yrs ago and could only remember the last part. Have thought of it for the past 30 yrs and could not find the first part, thanks for the first half.
I remember the “something something something…” as being “six days later they wish they had another pair and that’s how the polar bear died.”
I was six when my sister told me this little rhyme that was 41 yrs ago and could only remember the last part. Have thought of it for the past 30 yrs and could not find the first part, thanks for the first half.