As we leave the 1950’s with our final batch of songs, it must also be noted that is during this period the the ‘Comic or Comedic Song’ also starts being referred to as the ‘Novelty Song’. The intention is obviously to pigeonhole such songs (whether they in fact are funny or not) as slight abberations from more mainstream music particulary now that the era of the charts has now appeared in earnest.
“Hoots Mon” is a song written by Harry Robinson, and performed by Lord Rockingham’s XI. It was a number-one hit single for three weeks in 1958 in the UK. It is based on the old Scottish folk song “A Hundred Pipers”. It was also one of the first rock and roll songs to feature the Hammond organ, which would become popular in rock and roll music the following year with Dave “Baby” Cortez’s “The Happy Organ”. The record is mostly instrumental, punctuated by four stereotypical Scottish phrases: “Och aye”, “Hoots mon”, “There’s a moose loose aboot this hoose” and “It’s a braw, bricht, moonlicht nicht.”
“Beep Beep” is a novelty single by The Playmates, released in 1958 by Roulette Records. Beep Beep” was written by Carl Cicchetti and Donald Claps, the band’s arranger/pianist and drummer, respectively. The song is built around accelerando: The tempo of the song gradually increases commensurate with the increasing speed of the drivers. It is a tortoise-and-the-hare story, substituting the drivers of two unequal cars, a Nash Rambler and Cadillac, respectively. Roulette Records did not want to release the song as a single, because the song changed tempo, it explicitly named contemporary products on the market, and was not danceable; when disc jockeys began playing it off the album, it forced the label’s hand. Because of a contemporary BBC directive that prohibited songs with brand names in their lyrics, a UK version of “Beep Beep” was recorded for the European market, replacing the Cadillac and Nash Rambler with the generic terms limousine and bubble car.
“The Purple People Eater” is a novelty song written and performed by Sheb Wooley, which reached No. 1 in the Billboard pop charts in 1958, No. 1 in Canada, reached No. 12 overall in the UK Singles Chart, and topped the Australian chart. “The Purple People Eater” tells how a strange creature (described as a “one-eyed, one-horned, flying, purple people eater”) descends to Earth because it wants to be in a rock ‘n’ roll band. The premise of the song came from a joke told by the child of a friend of Wooley’s; Wooley finished composing it within an hour. A cover version recorded by British comedian Barry Cryer reached No. 1 in the Finnish chart after contractual reasons prevented Wooley’s version being released in Scandinavia.
“You’re A Pink Toothbrush” is a novelty song recorded in 1959 by Max Bygraves. Co-written by Ralph Ruvin, Bob Halfin, Harold Irving and Johnny Sheridan, Max Bygraves was pleased to have recorded this song, in his autobiography he wrote: “Sometimes in my stage act, I’ll announce a request for this song. If I hear a ripple go through the audience I’ll add, ‘Don’t knock it, folks. That song has sold over three million. Not records – toothbrushes.'”
