Being a dad myself, I think that I have a great singing voice and all my songs are funny. When my son is old enough to get on here, he will probably tell you different. But one twist I do that makes him laugh all the time is changing the words of songs slightly to put his name in the song. As in:
“Check it out now, the funk soul Brendan
Right about now, the funk soul Brendan”
or
“If I go crazy, will you still call me Super Brendan…”
My Dad had some great songs, I think he listened to Radio ads toomuch as a child. For brushing our teeth there was:
Brusha Brusha Brusha
With your new Ipana
Brusha Brusha Brusha
Goooood for your teeeeeeth.
Waking up was:
Up in the morning and out to school,
The boys they know the golden rule…
For my sister there was that song about the girl with “Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, she will have music wherever she goes” along with one about a girl who “she still insists that she’s NEVER been kissed.”
I think my favorite was the ditty that said:
I awoke one morning with such a thrill…
A little bird sat upon my window sill…
I lured him in with crusts of bread…
And then I crushed his little head.
Thanks Dad.
Finally a support group!
Dad still sings (that’s what he calls it)anything and everything. One childhood favorite:
Ooogoo was a little worm
a little worm was he
he sat upon the railroad tracks
the train was coming fast
poor little Ooogoo wouldn’t turn around
poor little ooo was GOO!
He also has a habit of picking up odd phrases from songs or commercials and corrupting them to suit his ‘ear’
Example: Pizza Pizza - he literally runs around the house, poking his head into rooms; shouts PIZZA PIZZA, and then runs off.
He was watching the news and they were doing a story on Mardi Gras (sp?) For weeks, he would indiscriminately blurt, Bedlem on Bubon Stweet (this is the phonetic spelling. it took us a few days to figure out what the hell he was saying.
‘Holding me holding me AHHHHHHHHHHH’- some Simply Red song
‘Guilty feet have got no rythum’ - WHAM (?)
Opera- HIS version!
While we lived with my parents, neither my sisters or I heard his ‘singing’ half the time. I think its called environmental deafness. One night we were sitting around with some friends when they burst out laughing, for apparenly no reason. Turns out, Dad had popped his head in the kitchen, yelled ‘Pizza Pizza’ and ran away. None of his three daughters even noticed.
Now when I call home I can’t even believe the noise in the backround. I keep asking my mom what the hell he’s doing, and she says, ‘he’s singing’
Good Lord! Thank God for FHA home loans.
Almost forgot. Dad has FABULOUS little pet names for all his daughters. My younger sister is on any given occasion Worm Face(d) Thing, Ratso Rizzo, Babt Jan, EP, Hubert Bundage, I am either breadbasket or hamstew brwain, my older sister is little EP
And he wonders why I never remarried.
My dad had a thing for cowboy songs. He used to sing Old Man River, Red River Valley, The Streets of Larado, Sweet Betsy from Pike, La Cookaracha (sp). And campfire songs–A Sippin’ Cider through a Straw, Go Tell Aunt Rhody, Row Row Row Your Boat, Found a Peanut.
But he had one song which I used to love (God knows why–I must have been strange even then), and I can only remember part of one line “the sow took the measles and she died in the spring.” Anybody know this one? I think Burl Ives may have recorded it. Guess once I’m home I should go surfin’ (now everybody’s learnin’ how…come on a safari with meeeee.).
Sniff, sniff. This thread brought back some tender memories.
Here’s one that my grandfather sang to me and which I proudly pass on to my kids:
He laid down by the sewer
and by the sewer he died
and that it why they call it
sewer, sewer, sewer-cide!
Here’s an obscure one from my own dad, which he sang loudly and frequently:
"Oh, we’re all going down
to Santa Fe town
to join the big fiesta!
We’re all going down
to Santa Fe town
to join the big fiesta!
Perka deedle di do 1-2-3,
Perka deedle di do 1-2-3!"
He said he saw it on some old cartoon when he was a kid. At some point, years ago, I believe I saw a snip of that cartoon; it was an old Terry Toons starring Farmer Brown (I believe), and some proto- Heckle and Jeckle characters. Does this ring a bell with anyone?
I did that too! My kids hated it! I thought it was funny. I would also put their name into stories that I read to them.
It really made me smile when I read of all you people remembering your father singing goofy songs when you were a kid. I can only hope that my kids will smile when they hear a silly song and think about me.
My Dad can’t carry a tune at all, and actually lip synchs from the church hymnal. He did participate around the house sometimes, though, and I have a lot of really strange songs rattling around in my head that originated from somewhere in my childhood. Anybody remember these?
Black socks that never get dirty
the longer you wear them the stronger they get
Sometimes I think of the laundry
but something inside me says ‘Don’t send them yet’
Or
Said the thousand legged worm
as he gave a little squirm
Has anyone seen a leg of mine
If it can’t be found
then I’ll have to go around
on the other nine hundred ninety nine
Or
Granny’s in the cellar
Lordy don’t you smell her
Cooking bisquits on that
durned old dirty stove
In her eye there is a matter
that keeps dripping in the batter
And she whistles while the
(snot sucking sound goes here)
runs down her nose
And I used to know all the words to ‘My dingaling’ but we tried to put that one together at work one day and I have forgotten most of it.
To the tune of “My Bonnie”:
Last night as I lay on my pillow
Last night as I lay on my bed
I stuck my feet out the window
Next morning the neighbors were dead.
And “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder”, a favorite of my mother, and now my daughter’s (a whole new generation of corny song singers).
And the one about 12 posts up, about “the camels are coming”? I think he was really singing “the Campbells are coming”…some kinda scottish tune, I believe.
John Larrigan: Yeah, that’s it. Thanks. Thanks SO much. NOT!
Uke: The version I like is this:
When an eel lunges out
and he bites off your snout
that’s a moray…
Got that from a B.C comic strip (mumblemumble) years ago. Don’t know why it stuck with me.
I like to make my daughters mad by purposely mutilating any song they like.
Of course, I also used to sing:
Leprosy
All my skin is falling off of me
I’m not half the man I used to be
Oh now that I’ve got leprosy
Sung to the tune of Yesterday
hats off to John Valby for that…
My wife won’t let me sing the rest of it around them…
My dad was never really that creative. My mom was though. at night she used to tell me and my brother stories about “Herman and Norman” whose lives were incrediabally similer to ours, and they seemed to meet the same people that we did, except that they’d be named Gertridue or Malachi or something like that.
I have a very vivid memory as a kid. My dad, who enjoyed playing around with his guitar, was in the living room picking. Mom was taking dinner out of the oven. She dropped the meal by accident. I ran to tell dad. Without breaking stride he composed, on the fly, a new song.
“Moma dropped the Meatloaf on the Floor”
Its still a classic.