I was flipping radio channels on the drive into work this morning and happened on “Palisades Park” by Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon (written by Chuck Barris). That got me to thinking about other songs about amusement parks – and I’m not finding too much. Freddy re-recorded “Palisades” as “Kennywood Park” for a limited-edition 45.
I had thought Bobby Rydell’s “Wildwood Days” was about a park there, but apparently it’s just about having summer fun in a beach town. The Cowsills didn’t write “Indian Lake,” but they have claimed it’s about a lake in Rhode Island; there is an Indian Lake in Ohio that used to have a real amusement park (1924-1982) with roller coasters, dance hall, arcade, etc.
The Drifters’ “Under the Boardwalk” includes “From a park you can hear the happy sounds from a carousel.” I see that the rapper 50 Cent had a “song” called “Amusement Park,” and the Beach Boys had “Amusement Parks, U.S.A.”:
*At Palisades in Salisbury Parks the rolly coasters are flyin’
At Euclid Beach on the flying turns I’ll bet you can’t keep her smilin’//
The parachutes at Riverview Park will shake us up all day
And Disneyland and P.O.P. is worth a trip to L.A. *(what’s P.O.P.?)
The Hollies sang “On a Carousel”; there’s “Roller Coaster of Love” by the Ohio Players and “Tunnel of Love” by Dire Straits, but those are all metaphors, I think. I’d rather keep it literal.
There was a promotional song about Palisades Park that they used on TV ads for it. It wasn’t the same as the Chuck Barris song.
I can’t get music here, but one of these ought to have it:
As far as radio/TV ads go, Seabreeze Park in Rochester, N.Y. had its own jingle, too. Again, this might have it, or not:
But for a non-advertisement song about an amusement park by a significant group, there’s Salt Lake City by the Beach Boys. It’s not exclyusively about the Lagoon amusement park north of the city, but it takes up quite a bit of the song. The Beach Boys used to perform there:
Closest I can think of is Lakeside Park by Rush although I can’t think of any amusement rides mentioned, so it might just be about a regular old park.
A couple songs by The Promise Ring come close, too, but upon further recollection it turns out they just drop one or two fair references into generic childhood nostalgic songs without the entire song being about a fair. Plus they had an amusement park on one of their album covers. So I must have blended it all together and thought that they did an entire song about an amusement park. (ETA: only song I can think of at the moment is Heart of a Broken Story.)
Freedomland was an amusement park built within New York City circa 1960. t was bigger than Disneyland when it opened. (It was built by Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood, who built Disneyland. He also built other amusement parks around the country, including Pleasure Island near me in Massachusetts. All of them closed relatively rapidly, wkith Frededomland lasting about three years).
They commisioned an album for the park, with music by Broadway composer Jule Styne (who also did “Mr,. Magoo’s Christmas Carol”):
That’s good. Songs that mention actual amusement park rides are good, like “Under the Boardwalk” as I said above; I’m just not talking about rides as metaphors for love/sex/life as in “On a Carousel.”
I don’t have a problem with commercials either; it’s summer! (almost) and I just wanted to hear more songs.
The Model Rockets had “Rusty Rollercoaster”, about sneaking into a park after closing and riding the ride, complete with safety announcements, carnival music, and chain lift sound effects.
I see Van Morrison had a song called “Coney Island,” but it doesn’t refer to the New York amusement park. Lou Reed and Tom Waits each had (different) songs called “Coney Island Baby” in addition to the barbershop classic by that title. The Ramones’ “Oh Oh I Love Her So” talks about taking a girl to Coney Island, and there seem to be lots more.
A band called the Dirtbombs has a song called “Cedar Point '76,” but the most it says is
“Almost time to go, dizzy from the rides,
Behind the pinball machine, I’m trying to hide//
Watch her disappear in the corkscrew line”
It’s basically about trying to hook up with a girl the singer meets in the arcade.
Cedar Point is 142 years old, the second-oldest amusement park in the U.S., if you believe Wikipedia; you’d think there’d be an actual song about it.
We were terrorized this morning
Riding It’s A Small World After All
And there should have been a warning
Parents must have lots of alcohol
There’s a woman in a rat suit
Tell me does she ever get a breath
Always stuck inside a rat suit
Scaring all the children half to death
I’m up on the tightwire,
one sides ice and one is fire
It’s a circus game with you and me.
I’m up on the tightrope,
one side’s hate and one is hope
But the tophat on my head is all you see.
