Not everyone can hear the wind rushing through the coconut palms!
I not only know the Grandfather’s Clock song, but I wrote my own lyrics when my grandfather died and I inherited his socks.
My grandfather’s sock was too large for his foot
So it stayed ninety years in a drawer.
It had holes in the sole and had holes in the toe
Though it cost him a dollar ninety-four.
It was bought on the day that my grandma was away
And always was something of a joke.
And it smelled bad, never was worn again
Till the old man croaked.
Ninety years without laundering
Splish splash splish splash.
Its mate had gone wandering
Mismatch mismatch.
And it smelled bad, never was worn again
Till the old man croaked.
That makes me think of a news story I saw recently about a guy who collects donated old sneakers, refurbishes them, and gives them out in (I think) Nepal. There are people there in that cold part of the world with no shoes. It made me wonder–there had to be some sort of home- or local-made footwear in that region traditionally, even if just some sort of woven reeds. But now they are dependent on charitable donations of modern mass-produced shoes. So was the cultural knowledge of traditional footwear lost?
Or they simply didn’t use much in the way of shoes. My brother’s MiL had owned espadrilles in her childhood but to be worn only rarely; she didn’t own a pair of shoes until her father died and the mother moved to the big city with her kids: to enter work as a serving maid, the two eldest daughters needed shoes. Spain 1940s-50s.
No, I’m a 55-year-old in England, and I know the song well. It was regularly played on Junior Choice in the 60s and 70s. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s now unfamiliar to those who aren’t middle-aged Radio 2 listeners, though.
I learned that song from an episode of The Twilight Zone: “Ninety Years Without Slumbering”
Which illustrates another salient point of culture in general: It builds on, and refers to, itself.
I can’t google it back up again (I think it was a piece on 60 Minutes or one of the long weekend pieces on CBS News) but the guy repaired the shoes and distributed them himself in one of the higher-latitude, higher-altitude Asian countries–Nepal or Tibet or Bhutan or similar–one of the places where going without shoes can lead to going without toes.
I graduated from high school 80 miles south of Cleveland in 1994, and even I know who Michael Stanley is! Though, to be honest, I can’t name any of his songs.
I see your Grandfather’s Clock and Jolly Sixpence and raise you a Barges, Waddlee-Atchee, Noah, Bunny Foo Foo, An Austrian Went Yodeling, AND Haggalina Maggalina.
I’m 56 and I remember a lot of the songs we learned in music class. I was a Campfire Girl, too so there were a whole bunch more songs. I remember the words and actions and they pop into my head from out of nowhere after all these years. It’ll be raining hard and people are streaming in from the parking lot and I hear “Get those children (CLAP!) out of the muddy muddy” in my head. Or someone says something is simple and I almost reply back “Waddlee atchee waddle atchee doodly doo, doodly doo”.
I learned the tune “My Grandfather’s Clock” because my brother had a toy similar to this one. My mother then taught us the lyrics, although I basically only remember her singing the “and it stopped/ short/ never to go again/ when the old man died” part. Years later (but long before reading this thread) I learned that the song gave rise to the “grandfather clock” term.
Having been born in 1959 and growing up in the Cleveland area, I’m well aware of who Michael Stanley is. I even remember when he reworked this number with Indians baseball-specific lyrics (“This team/ is my team/ all right”) during one of the years when I was a vendor at Cleveland Stadium in the '80’s.
Wikipedia confirms that the song gave rise to the term “Grandfather Clock” (the older, and to this day more formal term is “Longcase clock”), and also that the tune is well-known in Britain.
I had a 45 record of the song (I remember the label, with a grandfather clock with an old man’s face in it) and played it incessantly in the early 1960s.
I’m 64 from the UK and have never heard the song.
I know what a grandfather clock is (and one of my aunts used to have one.)
Never heard the song, and never knew the term came from it. I’m kind of boggled to learn this. And I’m over 60.
Looking at etymonlinemore closely, the term doesn’t came directly from the song.
Work just refers to his grandfather’s clock; later uses picked up on the song, though presumably people had been referring to that style of clock in that fashion after the song became popular.
My family had a tape copy of this version sung by the men of the Robert Shaw Chorale. Robert Shaw Chorale - Grandfather's Clock.avi - YouTube
In one of his video commentaries, Harlan Ellison complained about nobody catching a reference to “Lost Horizon”. The transcript is here, but IIRC it was based on an earlier print column.
Rodriguez’ story is like a fairy tale. I’m glad he was in fact alive to enjoy his belated fame 
When I found out my friend didn’t know what a grub* was, I, completely incredulous, told another friend. “Can you believe this moron doesn’t know what a grub is?”
“What’s a grub?”
I polled 10 people and only 1 person knew what a grub is.
- I was using it in context of a beetle larva in conversation, specifically
I graduated from the same area in 1991, I knew who Michael Stanley was. “He Can’t Love you like I love you”
Didn’t know he was a radio personality though.