What are they saying in the song that starts the Drew Carey show (the ‘Cleveland Rocks’ version). It sounds like it says, “Living in sin with a safety pin.” What does it mean? Do I have the words wrong?
You have the words right, still don’t know what the hell it is supposed to mean, ask Ian Hunter, he wrote it.
watch what you say
or they’ll be calling
you a radical,
a liberal,fanatical
a criminal…
Most likely it was a reference to the fact that punk rockers often wore safety pins as a crude form of body piercing.
BTW, though Hunter wrote the song, it’s performed by the Presidents of the United States of America. Love that name. 
“What we have here is failure to communicate.” – Strother Martin, anticipating the Internet.
Believe it or not…but Drew Carey actually sings that song…and he has a good voice…who says you don’t learn something everyday
I’m as confused as a baby in a topless bar
For those who don’t pay that much attention to TV theme songs:
When someone annoys you it takes 42 muscles to frown. But it takes only 4 muscles to extend your arm and whack them in the head.
Damn! And I thought this was going to be a thread about “Moon Over Parma.”
Anybody? Bueller? Bueller?
…but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans!
Girlswear safety pin necklaces in high school as a symbol that they are stil birgins. Thus “Living in sin with a safety pin” would be claiming to be more virtuous than you are.
Yeah, no cite, no proof. But I’m decently sure
–John
You’d think a girl would have to wear her safely pins somewhere other than her neck to really protect her birginity.
“Moon Over Parma”
(Bob “Mad Dog” McGuire)
Although the song has the feel of a Tin Pan Alley standard you swear you’ve heard before, in reality it’s a 1983 composition, originally written for a local Cleveland TV show, that Drew heard on a random visit to favorite nightspot, the House of Swing, performed by a banjo player known to regulars as Bob “Mad Dog” McGuire. McGuire’s tongue-in-cheek tribute to one of the area’s lesser-known suburbs was the first season’s theme. It is presented here in its original main title version as well as in a previously unheard longer, slower take featuring a few additional verses.
from http://www.rockymusic.org/cds/drew-carey-show.html#liner
I wrote:
And then the lovely and talented Arnold Winkelried (who appears to bear no ill-will for my mocking of Belgians in another thread) chimed in with:
Thanks, Arnie! (Ya don’t mind if I call you Arnie, do ya?) [dig to ribs] Great!
Anybody but me still hoping that they go back to changing the theme song every season (or at least change it once to something less brain-dead than “Cleveland Rocks”)?
“Moon over Parma” (Season 1) was lots of fun, sung by the show’s star (always a plus) and the opening credits that accompanied it were soothing, minimalist and quite swell.
“Five O’Clock World” (Season 2) was the show’s first big dance number, was done exceptionally well, and was very funny. It aparrently had the detriment of not being about Cleveland.
“Cleveland Rocks” (Season 3 to date) was, by contrast, obvious, silly and simple-minded. The dance number was just an excuse to show the few excuses for scenery Cleveland has, and the song itself is '70s rock at its most obvious (like the nth generation Xerox of “Rock and Roll, Hootchie Koo”). It was nice enough for one season, but we’re up to year three or four on it now. Enough already.
…but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans!
You left out the one-shot theme song/dance number, “What is Hip?”
Yes, I did. My bad. (I guess I thought of that as a show without a theme song, rather than one with a different theme song, since it wasn’t repeated.)
…but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans!