It plays a different song for each day of the week. I’m not usually home when it comes during the weekdays but Saturday is “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and Sunday is “Turkey in the Straw”. The other five are well worn classics but I can’t remember what they are.
I’d never heard of “Turkey in the Straw” until I asked someone what that noise was coming from the truck.
Two ice cream trucks roam my neighborhood every night. One is a traditional Mister Softee truck. The other is a special ed short bus, repainted white, with “Mr. Cool” painted on the side in fluorescent green, of course in the region’s favorite typeface, Brush Script. It would take some serious trust for me to run out and buy a custard from the Mr. Cool bus.
Anyhow, Mister Softee plays the traditional Mister Softee jingle. Mr. Cool plays The Entertainer.
“The Entertainer”… by Billy Joel
Actually it’s some discordant collection of notes randomly punctuated by a loud computerized-girl voice saying “HELLO!” I have no idea what in the hell that’s all about. It’s like the ice cream truck of the damned.
Around here, the ice cream truck is called The Ding-Ding Man. They don’t play music, they have bells they ring as they drive through your neighborhood.
See, I should have read the OP because this is probably the case with mine as well. It doesn’t sound like “She’ll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain” but the tape might just be worn out or something. I can’t imagine there’s that many ice cream truck mix tapes with the strange girl voice.
I’m glad to see you and the OP both mention this “HELLO!” thing. The truck that came around my apartment complex for the last few years did this, too… a brief bit of some warped music, an exaggerated “Boing!” cartoon sound effect, then a really loud computerized girl screaming “HELLO!”
Luckily, that truck, or at least its sound system, has been replaced, and we’re back to actual music. The current truck seems to cycle through several songs, as I’ve heard several in the last few days: Alouette, Pop Goes the Weasel (what a strange title, now that I type that name out), Itsy Bitsy Spider, and others. There’s also one which plays mariachi music.
I forgot: when I lived in Denver, there were no ice cream trucks that went down my street. Instead, there were ice cream carts pushed by old Mexican men. I saw the carts in the strangest places; industrial parks on weekends, alleys, streets with few houses, empty parks, and the like. The carts had jingling bells, and ever so often the men pushing them let out a loud groan. I never saw anyone buy ice cream from these guys.
“Red Wing” (or “Union Maid” if that’s your bent). Denver.
The ones in my youth I remember as playing a discordant little polka, which turned up, years later, as the hold music at a newspaper where I worked. Another reporter called it “Music for the Deaf.”
Damn, really? That’s pretty cool. Oh, you can’t scare me…
I think the ice cream trucks around here play a proprietary jingle (Hemglass, for those who know what I’m talking about). The ice cream truck over here runs things a little differently; they don’t sell individual treats, they sell in bulk and only come by once a week or so (more frequently in the summer, less frequently in the winter). Nonetheless the jingle is familiar enough to everyone that it sets the kids off when they hear it.