…even if she lived in a good part of town, I think everybody, yeah, would put his Sloopy down.
Might just as well have been named Slutty.
I know I was not alone in thinking the song was about Snoopy.
Apparently the song was inspired by Dorothy Sloop.
Well, now I feel like a douche.
Carry on.
I always liked this song, and started singing it in my head when I saw the Subject line. I laughed when I read the OP because I’ve thought the same thing. Thanks for the heads up about Dorothy Sloop Shakester, I never knew that and hadn’t heard of her.
Biffy the Elephant Shrew, I used to sing it as Snoopy even though I knew better, because I had the single and it specifically said “Sloopy.”
Educational link for those who have no clue what we’re talking about and would prefer to learn rather than be clueless at what sounds like a bizarre in-joke. Well, if in fact anyone like that is reading this.
“Hang On Sloopy” by the McCoys
Unfortunately I couldn’t find any Dorothy Sloop or Dixie and Sloopy recordings on YouTube.
Thanks for the background info, Shakester! I had always wondered why the singer would be referring to a girl like that.
I also always wondered, as a child, why some adults would insist that it was “Snoopy” when the lyrics clearly had nothing to do with the dog.
The best version of this song, incidentally, is by David Porter, and is over 11 minutes long. if you haven’t heard it before, enjoy.
As a Spanish speaking child I heard that song, and wrongly believed “Lupe” was the girl named in the lyrics.
Lupe, sounds like exactly like Sloopy, without the S in Spanish, and we had a “bad girl” named Lupe in our neighborhood.
I remember those days, listening to tinny am radios. Most of the Top 40 songs had virtually no real meaning to them, so “Hang on” was deep advice …man.
And we had songs sung to “Delilah”, “Cecilia”, “G-L-O-R-I-A”, “Maggie Mae”, “Rhiannon”, “Elvira” and “Sweet Pea”, so “Sloopy”? Not that odd.
I enjoyed singing it as a tribute to Soupy Sales, myself!
I also wondered about the dance that went with the song. It had already appeared at parties, where it was known, in the Philadelphia area, as “the crossfire”–boys and girls in facing lines, and step-step-step-kick right, then left. When this song appeared, that dance became inextricably associated with it, to the degree that it was renamed “the Sloopy.” Once the song slipped down the charts, the dance pretty much disappeared, though. Has this happened with any other dance/song combinations?
That looks like bullshit to me, as Dorothy Sloop was nothing at all like the Sloopy in the song. What does Cecil call it when people imagine a link when there is none? I think whoever wrote that part of the Wikipedia entry did it.
I remember there was a Spanish version of this song, and the girl actually was named Lupe. I looked it up on YouTube as “Hey Lupe”, and here it is.
Wow. Los Rockin Devils! I didn’t remember that song, but I probably heard it. Thank you.
The songwriter heard an unusual nickname and it inspired a song, what’s so difficult to believe about that? Nobody claimed the song was any kind of biography of Dorothy Sloop.
I dunno, it could have been biographical. From all reports, it appears that the songwriter did not, in fact, care what Dorothy’s daddy do.
mmm
But, but, but you can’t stop there - the world wants to know more about this person. And so do I.
Derringer might have thought Sloopy was a good candidate to roll in the grass behind the barn.
Lupe was a compulsive liar, and was always trying to impress people with stories about what her daddy do. For example, “he was wealthy, he knew the Beatles, he was going to buy her a fancy car when she turned 16,” etc. When the truth was that she had no father living in the home, or visiting her.
She was considered to be “boy crazy”, and got plenty of attention for the sexy way she danced publicly, to neighborhood garage band music. Elders warned us girls never to make a spectacle of ourselves like Lupe, however, as I remember the dancing was the normal style of the time.
Lupe wore her straight jet black hair in a page boy style, with some strands partly falling over one eye, and way more makeup, by comparison to the other girls.
Also, she was well built, and more developed than was typical, so it was suggested that she probably “stuffed her bra with tissue paper.”
Hopefully she outgrew her issues and went on to a happy life, but I have no idea what happened to her.
Are there variants of English in which Sloopy = Slutty?
Wouldn’t that be more Sloppy than Sloopy?