Can’t think of any others, but it’s come to my attention that Growing On Me by The Darkness is actually about pubic crabs… go ahead, listen to the lyrics, you’ll never think of it the same again!!!
Are there any other songs with strange subject matters?
Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road
MacArthur Park. Come on, who would leave a cake out in the rain? I worked so hard to make it. And I’ll never have that recipe again…Whoa…Whooooooooa.
Then there’s always the one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater.
And the itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny yellow polka dot bikini
God, I am so old…
What about the Shiny flying purple wolfhounds that are supposed to tell me where you are? And the mountains that come out of the sky and they stand there?
“my ding-aling” by Chuck Berry comes to mind.
Since we’ve mostly got novelty songs here, I think it’s fair to pull the Weird Al collection out and see what we’ve got. “Spam” (to the tune of R.E.M.‘s “Stand”) is about the canned meat product. “Here’s Johnny” is about Ed McMahon. "Stop Draggin’ My Car Around" is about a guy whose car keeps getting towed. “I Want A New Duck” is about wanting a new duck, with lots of specific conditions on its behavior. (One that won’t molt too much, one that won’t smell too fowl. And so forth.) “One More Minute” is a listing of all the stomach-turning things he’d rather do than spend one more minute with his ex. “Midnight Star” is about supermarket tabloids. “Stuck In A Closet With Vanna White” is about an unusual recurring nightmare. “Theme from Rocky XIII” is about a former heavyweight champ, now gone to seed, who runs a deli. “Amish Paradise” is about partying like it’s 1699.
And so forth.
“Timothy,” a song from the early 70s, sounds on first listen like it’s about cannibalism. Eventually, it’s revealed that Timothy is the guy’s beloved pet dog. So it’s a bereavement song about a guy who ate his own dog. That’s pretty strange.
“Er hat ein knallrotes Gummiboot” was the first thing that came to mind. Some bits, roughly translated:
“He has a bright red rubber boat,
and with this rubber boat, we go about.
…
Kissing on board is forbidden,
I’ll tell you the story behind that:
This boat is so constructed
That kissing causes it to capsize.”
A friend brought this back with him from a recent trip to Germany.
Others:
“Where’s Captain Kirk?” by R.E.M.
“King of Spain” by Moxy Fruvous
“Sandwiches” by Fred Penner (admittedly a children’s song)
And a song I heard on CBC Radio’s “Sounds Like Canada” titled “Put Me Ashes In Me Bike Pump When I Die”. As I recall, it was written by an old man from Nova Scotia and put to music by a young lady from Labrador… I can’t remember much else exept how it sounds.
Oh, and that song about Fish Heads. “Eat them up, yum!”, or something like that.
wolfstu, you beat me to the Fish Heads song! One of my all-time favorites.
And of course there’s
Does your chewing gum lose its flavor
On the bedpost overnight?
If your mother says don’t chew it
Do you swallow it in spite?
Can you catch it on your tonsils?
Can you heave it left and right?
Does your chewing gum lose its flavor
On the bedpost overnight?
Then there’s that lieder by, was it Schumann? All about a trout. Very melancholic lyrics as the singer describes how lovely the trout is, how sad he’ll be to catch it and kill it, and on and on in a chokingly sentimental vein. The chorus master in high school glee club had to give up on having us sing that – we couldn’t get through it once without the whole group bursting into guffaws.
“I’m Just Wild About Animal Crackers”
“Fido is a Hot Dog Now”
“O’Brien is Tryin’ to Learn to Talk Hawaiian”
“Yes! We Have No Bananas!”
“The Song of the Prune”
“I’m Gonna Bring a Watermelon to My Girl Tonight”
“Turning Japanese” by the Vapors,
about monkey spankery
The 1941 New York Mining Disaster (The BG’s)
In the Year of 49 (Queen)
30,000 pounds of Bananas (Harry Chapin)
Cite?
According to this interview, he says this:
Mares eat oats
And does eat oats
And little lambs eat ivy
A kid’ll eat ivy too
Wouldn’t you?
a/k/a “Mairzy Doats”
AHAB THE ARAB by Ray Stevens
Hmmm, maybe it’s time for a revival. How PunC would that song be today?
Some more information on Timothy, written by Rupert Holmes, from The Wacky Top 40:
Some songs that really were about dogs – none eaten – include Jet by Paul McCartney, Sam by Olivia Newton John, and Shannon by Henry Gross. Wooly Bully was about Sam the Sham’s cat. Paul McCartney’s Helen Wheels was about his Land Rover. Semisonic’s Closing Time is about waitng for a newborn to be released from the hospital.
DID SHE JUMP OR WAS SHE PUSHED
by Richard and Linda Thompson
and not really a song, but perhaps the alpha rap hit:
THEY’RE COMING TO TAKE ME AWAY HA HA
I may very well be the dimmest bulb in the Lite-Brite™ because it took me well over twenty years to realize that the Pina Colada Song was about a guy cheating on his girlfriend (or maybe wife) by answering an ad in a singles column, and it turns out that his she wrote the ad he answered (lyrics here, along with delightfully annoying midi).