G: Gimme Dat Ding

 

Gimme Dat Ding

This was the lone chart hit by The Pipkins, a short-lived duo consisting of songwriter Roger Greenaway and singer Tony Burrows. Burrows had also performed in several other groups, often simultaneously. These groups included Edison Lighthouse ("Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes"), the Brotherhood of Man ("United We Stand") White Plains ("My Baby Loves Loving") and First Class ("Beach Baby"). 

The song was written by Albert Hammond (who would score a hit several years later with "It Never Rains in Southern California") and Mike Hazelwood. From this link:

“Gimme Dat Ding” was a novelty song written by Albert Hammond (the guy who had an earlier hit with “It Never Rains in Southern California“) and Mike Hazelwood. It was written for a British children’s television show called Little Big Time, which happened to be hosted by Freddie and the Dreamers, a group that was big during the early years of the British Invasion. The show was about a boy (played by Freddie) seeking the parts to fix a broken grandfather clock named Oliver. “Gimme Dat Ding” was sung by a talking metronome who’d been expelled from the machine kingdom called the Overworld by the Clockwork King. It seems that a once-evil machine called the Undercog had stolen the “ding” from the metronome, and the song was about the metronome trying to get his “ding” back—hence the lyrics and the title, “Gimme Dat Ding.”

Knowing that, the otherwise-nonsense lyrics now make sense:

A-ooh, what good’s a metronome without a bell for ringing?

How fast can anybody ever tell he swinging?

How can you tell the rhythm written on a bar?

How can you ever hope to know just where you are?

Ah, gimme dat, gimme dat, gimme, gimme, gimme dat

Gimme dat ding, gimme dat, gimme, gimme dat

The Pipkins were just two guys, Tony Burrows and his mate (and fellow Brotherhood of Manner) Roger Greenaway. That’s Mr. Burrows singing the Arte Johnson-like old man part* and Mr. Greenaway doing the slightly crazed higher part. Hey, it was a kids’ show.

              * See this link 

I thought he sounded like Wolfman Jack 🙂

And if you don't know what a metronome is, click here 🙂

F: Fast Food Song

 

Fast Food Song

This is a new one to me. Finding a novelty song for this letter was a little hard, so I looked at this list on Wikipedia and decided to look up this song. It's by a British group called Fast Food Rockers. It was primarily a hit in the UK, which explains why I never knew about it until now. I decided to give the song a listen and thought it was good.

The song was based on a children's playground song and its chorus is based on a Moroccan tune "A Ram Sam Sam."  KFC, McDonald's and Pizza Hut are all name-dropped in the song. The playground song mentions other fast-food chains not mentioned in the "Fast Food Song."

Sunday Break #1

I'm so glad we get Sundays off from the A to Z. It gives participants more time to blog hop and comment, and do stuff at home. Since all my posts have been scheduled, I have a little more time to hop around and comment, and check for comments on my posts. 

I wasn't so sure how often I would be on the blog outside of the A to Z, though I may try to throw in some posts like this on Sundays. I hope to get a Book Blog Discussion post on one of the free days, as I did a year ago. It was planned the day of. And I still don't know about Thursday 13 since I want to limit my non-A to Z posts to Sundays this month. I usually post the Bingo card when it comes out on the 3rd of each month. No medical procedures so far, at least not for the remainder of this month.

Tomorrow we resume with the letter F. See you then.

April Bookish Bingo

Here is the new card for April. 

My books:

1. Around the World in 80 Days--Jules Verne (10 squares): Library Book, Physical Book, Not in a Series, Character Feels Invisible, Action/Adventure, FBI, Bargain, Manipulation, Water on Cover, Free Space
2. Jazz--Walter Dean Myers (1 square): Audiobook
3. Earth's Wild Music--Kathleen Dean Moore (2 squares): E-Book, Wilderness
4. Prodigal Summer--Barbara Kingslover (6 squares): Free Book, Shelf Love, Author Read Before, Book Club Read, Egg, Siblings
5. Banned Book Club--Kim Hyun Sook ( squares): Library, Academic Setting

E: Eat It

 

Eat It

"Weird Al" Yankovic is a comedic singer-songwriter known for parodying other people's songs and also for original songs that parody different styles, such as polka. He has played the accordion on many of his songs. His inspiration for playing such music came from listening to Dr. Demento, a syndicated radio show that specialized in playing novelty songs. His parody of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," called "Another One Rides the Bus," was recorded live on Dr. Demento in September 1980. Among other songs, he also parodied Toni Basil's "Mickey" as "Ricky," (an homage to I Love Lucy) a video favorite during the early years of MTV. 

Yankovic's biggest hit however, came in 1984 when he released "Eat It," a parody of Michael Jackson's number-one hit from the previous year, "Beat It."  The parody lyrics are about a parent trying to get their fussy child to eat anything, much less eat properly. The video for "Eat It" even parodies the original, including the red jacket. Unfortunately, the video doesn't allow playback on other sites, so here is the link.  There is also this "coverage take" video:

"Weird Al" also wrote and starred in the 1989 movie UHF and had The Weird Al Show on CBS in 1997, as well as producing two satirical movies on his life, The Compleat Al in 1985 and the recent biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, with Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe as Yankovic. 

D: Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead

 

Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead

This, of course, is from The Wizard of Oz. It is one of several individual songs in an extended set-piece performed by the Munchkins, Glinda and Dorothy,  highlighted by a chorus of some of the Munchkins. The song was also sung by studio singers, and also by the Winkie soldiers. This group of songs celebrates the death of the Wicked Witch of the East when Dorothy's house falls onto her. The song was composed by Harold Arlen, and the lyrics written by E. Y. Harburg, the same team behind  the movie's signature song, "Over the Rainbow."

The song reached #2 on the UK Singles chart in 2013, following the death of Margaret Thatcher. 

In 1967, the band Fifth Estate scored their biggest hit with a cover of the song that included an interlude from the "Terpsichore Suite" by Michael Praetorius. The song was released in five different languages and achieved the highest American chart position of any Harold Arlen or Wizard of Oz song. An article on the band can be found here. 

C: Convoy

 

Convoy

A song by C.W. McCall (real name William Dale Fries, Jr.) about the CB radio craze of the 1970s, "Convoy" reached #1 on Billboard in 1975. The song contained an imagined conversation between truckers via CB radio, with CB slang. Users had handles (call signs or nicknames), which they used to address other truckers while conversing. "Breaker" was how users informed each other of wanting to start a transmission on a  channel. Channel 19 was the mostly commonly used channel, hence the term "Breaker 1-9, this is ..."

The references made in the song (see link above for explanations) may seem foreign to people of today who have grown up on cell phones and text speak. I was only a little girl when the song came out and I have very few, if any, memories of anyone using CB radios. This meme has shown up on the web:

I guess, in a way, that was true. Check out this video to see a CB radio.

The song and the CB/trucking craze inspired a 1978 movie of the same name. Earlier movies, like Duel and Smokey and the Bandit were also inspired by the craze. Trucking and CB radios were then at their peak.

The song must have been a favorite of the producers of The Simpsons, as one episode had Homer singing the song and another had a parody called "Christmas Convoy."

B: Barbie Girl

 

Barbie Girl

This runs piggyback to my Barbie theme last year. Someone who was doing a "silly songs" theme then (similar to my theme this year) mentioned having posted this song. I was not aware of the song until then. It was released in 1997, many years before the movie, and recorded by the Danish-Norwegian dance-pop group Aqua. One of the group's members wrote the song after seeing an exhibit on kitsch culture in Denmark that featured Barbie dolls. I did not know a lot of the "new" songs that came out in the 1990s. Perhaps the success of the Barbie movie has made (or will make) this song more popular now.

From link above:

Mattel sued Aqua for basically slandering the name of Barbie Doll. There was a big brouhaha about it, taken to several courts, but the case was ultimately dismissed. Later Mattel did use the song in promotions, only with a few modified lyrics.

Above is the official video by Aqua. The singer Tori V also recorded the song, and her video is below:

I also found this video of a kids' dance set to "Barbie Girl": 

A: All Together Now

Let Blogging A to Z 2025 begin! My theme this year is Novelty Songs. For Day One, I present:

All Together Now

Written primarily by Paul McCartney (but credited to Lennon and McCartney), "All Together Now" was recorded during the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour period, but not released until it was included on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack.  

From Wikipedia:

McCartney described the song as a children's sing-along with the title phrase inspired by the music hall tradition of asking the audience to join in. He also described a "subcurrent" in the song, a dual-meaning where "we are all together now". According to music critic Tom Maginnis of AllMusic, McCartney created the song "to match the same light-hearted spirit" of "Yellow Submarine."

"All Together Now" appears in an animated sequence in the film Yellow Submarine, and is also introduced by the Beatles themselves in a final live-action scene of the film. During the latter scene, translations of "All Together Now" into various languages appear written on-screen.

 While searching Youtube, I came across this children's version of the song:

 

Thursday 13: Letter Fun

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂   

Here is some alphabet humor in anticipation of the A to Z Blogging challenge which is just days away. Hope you'll join me then!

Looking Into Next Month

 

Just a little over a week until the alphabet madness begins. The official sign-ups begin this week. As soon as I revealed my theme two weeks ago, I then began drafting my posts. They are now scheduled for each of their designated letter days. Yes, I have a whole month of posts scheduled. I've only been using schedule-posting since last year's A to Z, but I didn't begin it then until the fifth day, though all my posts had been drafted a month earlier. 

I'm not sure who many more posts I'll be doing this month. I have a Thursday 13 scheduled for this week that ties in with the A to Z. Whether I'm going to do Thursday 13 in April remains to be seen. If I do, it will be done either the day of, or scheduled a day or so beforehand. If not, I'll be back in May. I'm trying to limit my non-A to Z posts to Sundays, since we are off then. I hope to get in a Book Blog Discussion post on one of the Sundays, and will be posting my Reading Bingo card for April on the first Sunday. Any other Sunday posts, if any, will be determined. This is how I did it last April. 

And I'm not certain how many more posts I'll get in for the rest of March. I'm a little worn-out from preparing my A to Z posts that I'm not sure what else to post. I had to get in a Book Blog Discussion post for this month. I try to do at least one a month. As I said, I have already scheduled a post for Thursday 13 this week. 

It's going to be a fun month of letter madness.

Book Discussion: How Quickly Do You Read New Purchases?

 

As I said earlier, I made my first purchase at the new bookstore in my hometown. I have yet to read the book and am uncertain when I will. Though I really hope to get it this year. So many times when I have bought a book (new or used), I most often put it aside to be read later--never knowing when that "later" will be.  Some have been sitting in my house for who-knows-how-long and I still wonder when I'll ever get to some of them, or why I haven't read them yet. 

But  there was one book I got earlier this year at Barnes & Noble that I recently read. I got the book in January and read it at the end of February. And earlier this month when I found this book at Goodwill, I read it right away. I was looking for a book set in the 1920s and was unaware at first that this is set then. Also, I had been wanting to find this book for a while.

How long do you often take to read a newly purchased book, whether it's new or used?

Toilet Paper Memories: Thursday 13

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂  

After getting a new pack of toilet paper the other day (my cousin got it from Costco), I got to thinking about the toilet paper shortage that happened at the start of the pandemic. I still wonder why people though it was necessary to hoard TP.  And several reminders came up on my Facebook memories this week. 

Drafting A to Z Posts

 

All last week I began drafting my posts for the A to Z. I wanted to get an early start so I can have time to look them over, which I already have been doing! They re currently in the draft folder, and once I get them polished up, I will schedule each for its designated letter day. I'm trying to decide how early to post each one. I will post each one in early in the morning, so it will live before I get up (which may be the case in most instances). For last year's A to Z, I did not begin the schedule-posting until the fifth day. It worked so well for such an event. I was glad to have learned about it a month or so earlier so that I could schedule-post on the day of a medical exam I had last April (some of you may already know about this). 

I'll be squeezing in as many posts as I can for the rest of this month, while awaiting the A to Z madness. By scheduling my posts, I should have more time to view and comment on other people's posts. I'm always excited to see what other come up with. The theme reveal (which is optional) closed yesterday, and the official signups begin next week. 

Thursday 13: Some Favorite Past A to Z Postings

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂  

After posting my theme reveal for A to Z Blogging 2025 this past Sunday, I immediately began drafting my posts. I got to thinking about some of my previous A to Z challenges. Here are some of my favorite posts from previous challenges. I've only been doing it since 2021, even though the event has been around since 2010. I was still new to blogging then and wasn't aware of the A to Z until around 2014 until I saw it on a now-defunct blog  that I read regularly. I spent years looking at blogs of others who participated and wondered if I'd ever be one of them. I finally decided to take the plunge. This year will be my fifth.

Click here to learn more about the A to Z, if you don't already know.

My past themes:

2021: Life During 2020

2022: Forgotten TV Shows

2023: Childhood Memories

2024: Barbie

1. 2021  Toilet Paper, Telephone appointments, Twitter, Texting, Trump Hating, Tok Tok, Tiger King. Now: no more phone appointment at Behavioral Health, but still meeting via Zoom. And another new doctor. And I won't get started on the Citrus Clown being back in office. It feels like we've stepped back in time! Haven't given up on Twitter since it became X under the Perfume Man; been on too long to want to leave. But I'm also at Bluesky now. And it's been five years since the day toilet paper began disappearing from store shelves. I can still see this in my mind. 
2. 2022: Angie. I wasn't too surprised that no one seemed to remember this show. Some knew the theme song, which was a Top 40 hit.
3. 2023 R for... How many of these do you remember? Did any one have a Rubik's Cube, whether is was the actual cube or a generic knockoff, or the mail-in offer from Chex Cereal shown in this post?
4. 2024 S: Shani  Not many people seem to remember this sister-line to Barbie. I was in my 20s when this came out, thus was past toy age. Had I been younger when it came out, I would have wanted it. 
5. 2023: T for... Who remembers reading teen romances, mainly those shown in this post? And Top 40 countdowns? I'm sure more than one of you had a Twinkie at some point in time :)
6. 2024: M: Midge I was surprised to learn how many people barely learned about Midge from the movie. I knew about Midge's Happy Family line when it came out in 2002, and I won't even say how old I was then! 
7. 2022: C: The Cross-Wits I was not too surprised about the reactions to this one. No one seemed to remember this game show. I've asked people I know who are older than I am, and none of them seem to remember either. Just how did the first run of this show last five years with almost no one remembering it?
8. 2023: L for... Did you have a favorite lunch box in grade school? Remember the library card catalogs? So few I've asked in person seem to remember Live Aid (this summer will be the 40th anniversary), and no one commented on that part of this post. One person, however, mentioned loving Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats (Geldof was organizer of the big benefit concert).
9. 2021: C: Cooking, Cleaning, Corona, CNN Here we are five years later. No more watching CNN in my house; it's now MSNBC. Not a lot of fancy cooking recently (I don't seem to have a lot of energy!) A lot of cleaning currently happening at home. Still hearing about the Coronavirus five years after the beginning of the pandemic shutdown.
10. 2022: H: Harper Valley PTA Again, I was not surprised that very few people, if any, remembered this show. Many did remember the hit song on which the show was based, however. I expected that.
11. 2021" X: X Titles, eXhausted, Drawing an X  Right now, I'm feeling a little exhausted because of the time change and the gloomy, rainy weather we've been having in my neck of the woods. It's expected to last until Saturday, then start again next week! And finding a title for X is as challenging as ever. I still need a book title and author name for Alphabet Soup reading challenges this year. And of course, a title for this year's A to Z blogging.
12. 2024: A: Alan Many did not know about Alan until the movie. 
13. 2022: Z:Zoom The PBS kids' show from the 1970s. Only a few seemed to remember this. It came up on Facebook in 2020, when people began using Zoom, the meeting app, at the start of the shutdown. Zoom (the app) and came up during A to Z 2021, along with Zoom (the show).

2025 Blogging A to Z Theme Reveal

 

The day is here! Time to reveal my theme for Blogging A to Z 2025. The theme is...

🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

Novelty songs

This idea came to me a while ago. I wasn't sure of any other theme ideas, so I went with this one. As always, some letters are tricky like Q, X, and Z. And some letters offer more than one choice, making it hard to pick just one. I'm still deciding on a few. For some of the ones I have already chosen there may be some debate as to whether they count as a novelty song. But if they seem close enough, I'll count them. I had to go with a few I'm only somewhat familiar with. Two others in last year's challenge had similar themes. I didn't want to duplicate too many of the songs each of them had used, but there were some I just had to use. Those were too hard to resist 😉

I will begin drafting my posts as soon as possible and schedule them as I did with last year's A to Z. That was my first time ever using schedule-posting. It came in handy for the timely event and the fact that I had to get my colonoscopy  done last year in April. No need for one this year; they said every five years 🙂 I want get the posts done this month so I can spend more time blog hopping in April. I don't know how often I'll be on the blog then outside of the A to Z, even though we will be off on Sundays. I want to use one of those days to make a Book Discussion challenge, as I did last April. Still unsure about the Thursday 13--I may take the month off from that one. My monthly book bingo post usually comes out on the third of each month, but last April, I delayed posting it until the first Sunday. I plan to do it that way again this April. I made two Sunday bonus posts relating to my A to Z theme last year, both of which were planned the day of posting. The Book Discussion post was also planned they day it was posted. We'll see how Sundays go in April. 

Be sure to visit in April for the alphabet madness. I can't wait to see what others come up with. Some have already posted their theme reveals and many sound fun. More reveals to come this week.

Five Years Ago

This came up on my Facebook memories today, from 2020:

This was just before the pandemic shutdown. I remember also getting a 12-pack of toilet paper at Safeway that same  knowing what lay ahead. 

This was very true and now it's been five years!

The following Friday, the 13th, I returned some books to the library without checking out more. It was good timing, as the shutdown would begin the following Monday. It as also on that Friday the 13th that people began noticing the empty store shelves. Toilet paper was being hoarded, and stores would be all out of it for quite a while. I could barely find any milk the following Monday morning, which ended up being my last day at work until the reopening in June that year.

I still can't believe it's been five years since having to be holed up at home, only being able to go to stores, banks and post offices, and having to stand six feet apart while waiting in line at these essential places, and trying not to literarily bump into anyone.  I would not be able to check out library books again until June, when curbside pickup began. Again, I was glad to have returned the ones I'd had out in March and not check more out right then. 

Time sure has gone fast.

Book Humor--Thursday 13

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂  

In honor of having a new bookstore in town and making my first purchase this past Saturday at a signing, I picked some cartoons about books. Some I had saved a year or more ago. Some I've shared already, some I haven't.