A second visit to the ‘Bear’ enclosure brings another fine collection of songs.
“Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear” is a song written by Randy Newman, about a sincere young man of modest means named Simon Smith who entertains affluent (“well-fed”) diners with his dancing bear. Newman wrote the ragtime-influenced song in 1964. He considered it a major stepping point in his songwriting, telling Performing Songwriter “I was writing a song, believe it or not, for Frank Sinatra Jr. and it was called something like “Susie” or “Mary” and I just all of a sudden couldn’t do it. So I ended up somewhere with “coat to wear” and “dancing bear”… …and then I was never the same. And I never wrote particularly conventional songs after that. A recording by the Alan Price Set reached No 4 on the UK Singles Chart in April 1967. Newman later recorded the song himself.
The Bear Missed the Train is a parody on the popular song Bei Mir Bistu Shein and was written by the Smith Street Society Jazz Band. According to Joe Hanchrow, “Sometime around 1964, one of the musicians made an off-handed remark about Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen, calling it The Bear Missed The Train. Within minutes, the tune was written and performed.” The song was used on radio shows. Al “Jazzbo” Collins used it as the theme on his late night jazz show in San Francisco. It also became a favourite on Jean Shepherd’s radio narratives.
“Eating The Bear” is a track from ‘Walk Under Ladders’ the seventh studio album by British singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading, released in September 1981 by A&M Records. The album peaked at No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart and was certified Gold by the BPI for sales in excess of 100,000 copies. The album peaked at No. 16 in Australia. Two minor hits from the album both fell just short of cracking the UK Top 40: “I’m Lucky”, which peaked at No. 46, and “No Love”, which peaked at No. 50.
“Bears” is a 1976 track by Steven Fromholz but brought to a wider public by Lyle Lovett in 1998 on his album ‘Step Inside This House’. It tells us to “remember that’s a bear there in the bunch with you” Some say it is symbolic of the inner beast that lies within us all. Others interpret it as a figurative description of the thorny people and situations we deal with in everyday life. Still, others say it is Steven Fromholz’s sarcastic commentary of a famous musician or maybe a musical agent. Or it may just be a song about bears.
“I’m a Gummy Bear (The Gummy Bear Song)” is a novelty dance song by Gummibar, in reference to the gummy bear, a type of bear-shaped candy originating in Germany. It was written by German composer Christian Schneider and released by Gummibär’s label Gummybear International. The song was first released in Hungary, where it spent eight months as number one atop the ringtones chart. Subsequently, it became a global phenomenon as an Internet meme, in large part due to its corresponding videos on YouTube and MySpace. It has since been released in at least 43 languages, and the English version alone has spread virally worldwide, with more than 2.9 billion plays on YouTube alone.
