# Songs you know that AREN'T parodies but you'll probably never hear anybody else sing **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [December 7, 2021, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-know-that-arent-parodies-but-youll-probably-never-hear-anybody-else-sing/955661 "2021-12-07T19:46:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-know-that-arent-parodies-but-youll-probably-never-hear-anybody-else-sing/955661/21 "2022-11-25T17:17:34Z")
For Christmas 1965, I got the _ **Mary Poppins** _ soundtrack album and a comedy LP recorded by Fred Gwynne, Yvonne DeCarlo, et al. I still can sing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocous” and the theme from _ **The Munsters** _. (Yes, there are lyrics.) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/wRNlPDma_88/hqdefault.jpg "AT HOME WITH THE MUNSTERS (A Night with TV's Most Unusual Family) (1964 - Golden Records)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRNlPDma_88) ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2022, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-know-that-arent-parodies-but-youll-probably-never-hear-anybody-else-sing/955661/22 "2022-11-27T03:37:33Z")
I don’t understand this thread at all. Why does “that AREN’T parodies” matter? Is the intention just “what songs do you know the words to that you believe are known by the fewest other humans on the planet?”? (Is the disclaimer intended to mean “other than parody songs you yourself wrote and thus literally no one else could possibly know?”) In any case, there’s a difference here between things that are well recorded by history but very few people know off the top of their head (ie, second verse of the Star Spangled Banner) and things that will someday soon, when a few more people die, entirely vanish from the human record, and you’re one of those people… or at least, as far as you know that might be possible. In the latter category, my 80-year-old-father sang to me a while ago the camp song for _Camp Big Paw_, a summer camp he attended in the 1950s somewhere near Chicago. When he dies I may be the only human being left who can sing the _Camp Big Paw_ theme song. Or maybe it thrived for decades, or even still exists, and thousands of Chicago-area kids sing it all the time. Beats me. One somewhat relevant story… I grew up singing the 1950s-era comedy songs of British duo _Flanders and Swann_. They’re not _obscure_, per se, but they’re certainly not well known, in the USA, among people born after 1970. One day in college (1990s) we were playing a “come up with songs that fit a theme” game of some sort, and I started singing _Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud_, and someone else started singing along, and I nearly fell over in shock. (We dated for several years, although I can’t remember which came first.) ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2022, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-know-that-arent-parodies-but-youll-probably-never-hear-anybody-else-sing/955661/23 "2022-11-27T05:52:17Z")
60 years later I can still sing the first verse of “Praise God from whom all blessings flow”. It was my favorite song, because when it started up it signaled church service was over. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2022, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-know-that-arent-parodies-but-youll-probably-never-hear-anybody-else-sing/955661/24 "2022-11-27T05:57:29Z")
_…Love, strange love a star-woman teaches…_ I can sing Weird Al’s “Bob.” ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2022, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-know-that-arent-parodies-but-youll-probably-never-hear-anybody-else-sing/955661/25 "2022-11-27T06:00:21Z")
> [@susan](#): > > _…Love, strange love a star-woman teaches…_ Ah, a kindred spirit! 🥰 ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2022, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-know-that-arent-parodies-but-youll-probably-never-hear-anybody-else-sing/955661/26 "2022-11-27T06:18:17Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else who knows all four verses of “The Star Spangled Banner” or Gene Roddenberry’s lyrics to the _ **Star Trek** _ theme. Tenacious D has covered the latter. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/sGbyEhX1620/hqdefault.jpg "Tenacious D - Star Trek Theme (with Original Lyrics)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGbyEhX1620) ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2022, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-know-that-arent-parodies-but-youll-probably-never-hear-anybody-else-sing/955661/27 "2022-11-27T16:49:32Z")
I learned “The Battle of Trenton” by Mike Agranoff several decades ago on a hiking trip and can still recite it today. Thinking about this, I looked it up and found his performance of it on Youtube, along with a few other favorites. I need to brush up on “The Ballad of Jake and Ten-Ton Molly”. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/X5s6EkByxKs/maxresdefault.jpg "The Battle of Trenton") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5s6EkByxKs) ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2022, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-know-that-arent-parodies-but-youll-probably-never-hear-anybody-else-sing/955661/28 "2022-11-27T22:08:38Z")
Dave Brubeck’s wife wrote lyrics to many of his tunes… i remember the first 2 lines of “The Duke”, but was vomiting too much to read any more. Yes - they are that bad. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2022, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-know-that-arent-parodies-but-youll-probably-never-hear-anybody-else-sing/955661/29 "2022-11-28T00:25:40Z")
Key did write four verses for the Star-Spangled Banner. But many others have added verses, and the third verse is often deliberately left out because it has the word “slaves” in it. Nobody’s absolutely sure but it probably refers to slaves who joined the English who promised them freedom. The song has a long, weird, and complex history I just read about in [O Say Can You Hear?: A Cultural Biography of "The Star-Spangled Banner](https://www.amazon.com/Say-Can-You-Hear-Star-Spangled/dp/039365138X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=100FB5NPKUDG5&keywords=cultural+history+of+the+star+spangled+banner&qid=1669594141&sprefix=cultural+history+of+the+star+spangled+banner%2Caps%2C97&sr=8-1). Fascinating book mostly. (Some chapters are so specialized about music theory I got lost.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-know-that-arent-parodies-but-youll-probably-never-hear-anybody-else-sing/955661.md?page=1)