M: Monster Mash

 

Monster Mash

This one goes without saying. It's a favorite on people's Halloween playlists every year (including mine). It reached #1 in 1962, just before Halloween. It was re-released in 2021, reaching #37. It thus has had a long-lasting impact.

Bobby Pickett was nicknamed Boris because of his ability to impersonate horror-film legend Boris Karloff. The song is about a mad scientist whose monster arises from its slabs one night and begins a new dance, supposedly inspired by the Mashed Potato dance of the early 1960s. The dance becomes "the hit of the land," and the scientist throws a party at which other monsters, such as the Wolfman, Igor, Dracula and his son. Pickett also impersonated Bela Lugosi as Dracula on the record, as well as impersonating Peter Lorre as the voice of Igor (even though Lorre never played that character). The lyrics ask "Whatever happened to my Transylvania Twist?" a reference to the popular dance The Twist. The "Transylvania Twist" is now the "Monster Mash." This also may be the only popular song to include the word "electrodes" in the lyrics.

Pickett was never able to repeat the success of "Monster Mash," but the song remains a perennial spooky time favorite.

L: Leader of the Laundromat

 

Leader of the Laundromat

Decades before Weird Al Yankovic and other parody artists of today, there was a group called The Detergents, who specialized in song parodies. The band included Ron Dante, who would later become lead vocalist for the Archies, singing lead on that band's signature hit "Sugar, Sugar." 

"Leader of the Laundromat" was released in 1964, as a parody of the Shangri-Las' then-recent hit, "Leader of the Pack". "Leader of the Laundromat" became a hit in its own right, reaching Billboard's Top Twenty. It wasn't without opposition, though, as the writers of "Leader of the Pack" filed a suit against the Detergents, which was settled out of court. The Detergents remained active until 1966. Two years later, Dante joined the Archies.

Below are both songs. The original is included for comparison. Both can be considered novelty songs.

Book Discussion: Subgenres I Did Not Know About

 

Just when I thought I'd seen everything as far as book subgenres go, I find two I'd never heard of until recently:

Solarpunk

Hopepunk

How many of you have heard those? I won't be surprised if not many of you have, since I just barely learned of them myself.  In looking at the lists from Goodreads, I was surprised to see how many books in each I'd read, not knowing the said subgenres actually existed. There are even more books in the hopepunk list that I have read that in the solarpunk one. To me, they just seemed like fantasy or in some instances climate fiction (cli-fi), a subgenre that was new-to-me several years ago. 

Every year, I get the reading category, "Genre you don't often read" (or some variation on that idea). I immediately think of self-help or westerns when I see this. Those have never been big reads for me. But do subgenres count, even if I have read the main genres? Solarpunk and hopepunk are just subgenres of fantasy. A western romance is just another romance. I won't even get started on romantasy!

I now wonder what other subgenres people will come up with. Are there any others you've found that seemed new and unusual to you?

K: Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb)

 

Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb)

While looking for novelty songs starting with K, I found many I'm not too fond of, and one that I felt was inappropriate to include. I nearly forgot this about this one. It was well before my time, but I am familiar with this song.

Sung by Connie Stevens and Edd Byrnes, that song refers to Byrnes's character from the TV series 77 Sunset Strip. It was included on Byrnes's album Kookie Star of 77 Sunset Strip.

In the song, she wants him to lend her his comb. When he finally asks why, she says so he can stop combing his hair and kiss her. The song consists of mostly spoken-word lyrics, except when Kookie sings the bridge section.

J: Joy to the World

 

Joy to the World

Some may argue about whether this could be considered a novelty song, but the members of Three Dog Night, who recorded this tune written by Hoyt Axton, have described the song as a "kids' song" and a "silly song." It contains some nonsensical words in the lyrics. The song is most recognized for its opening line, "Jeremiah was a bullfrog." When Axton (whose song "Never Been to Spain" was also a hit for Three Dog Night) presented the song to the group, two of Three Dog Night's lead singers, Cory Wells and Danny Hutton, initially turned it down. But the third singer, Chuck Negron, felt a "silly song" was needed to bring the group back together as a working unit (from the link above). The song became one of the group's best-known hits. 

The song's opening line is referenced in this Far Side cartoon (only those familiar with the song would get the cartoon):

Not to be confused with the traditional Christmas song of the same, though Mariah Carey used the Three Dog Night song's refrain in her 1994 rendition of the Christmas song.

The story behind the song is in this video:

Also see this video of puppets performing the song. Note lyric changes: "Joy to the fishes..." from the original becomes "Joy to the city..." in this cover. Also "...a good wine" is replaced with "...have a good time." Obviously that one needed to be changed for a kids' version :)

I: I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream

 

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream

Some letters offered more than one possible song choice, and this was one of them. 

"I Scream..." was first published in 1927 with words and music by Howard Johnson, Billy Moll, and Robert A. King. After success as a novelty song in the early 1930s, it became a jazz standard. The song's refrain remains a pop culture saying. Many people know the refrain without knowing the rest of the song lyrics. I only knew it by that one line, and had never heard the full song until now. The setting of the song was a fictional college in Alaska, and the refrain was the college cheer. The song has been popular among kids. And some may remember it being used as a commercial jingle.

H: Hot Rod Lincoln

 

Hot Rod Lincoln

Originally recorded by Charlie Ryan in 1955, "Hot Rod Lincoln" was an "answer song" to an earlier record, "Hot Rod Race."   

The song's premise is described below (from link above):

It describes a drive north on US Route 99 (predecessor to Interstate 5) from San Pedro, Los Angeles, and over "Grapevine Hill" which soon becomes a hot rod race that ends with serious consequences.

The car race is described between two hot rod cars, the narrator's Ford Model A (with a Lincoln motor) and a Cadillac. The song says the Ford's "got 12 cylinders", overdrive, a four-barrel carburetor, 4.11:1 gear ratio, and safety tubes. The narrator ends up being arrested by the police for his high-speed driving, and is thrown into jail, where the narrator calls his father to bail him out, and describes the exasperation of his father: "He said, 'Son, you're gonna drive me to drinkin' / If you don't quit (or "Stop") drivin' that hot rod Lincoln!'"

Country singer Johnny Bond also recorded the song in 1960, with a few lyrical changes  (See Wikipedia link for details). The most successful version of the song, however, is that by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen in 1971. As with Steely Dan, Jethro Tull and Lynyrd Skynyrd, no one in the group was named Cody. Rather "Commander Cody" was an alias used by frontman George Frayne IV. Commander Cody's rendition of "Hot Rod Lincoln" reached #9 on Billboard. This version retained some of the lyrical changes from the Johnny Bond version, but also changed the lyrics to further maintain the original story.  Below is Commander Cody's version with the lyrics in the video description.

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 (9 squares): Library Book, Physical Book, Not in a Series, 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 (2 squares): Library, Academic Setting
6. Invisible Emmie--Terri Liberson (2 squares): Character Name in Title, Character Feels Invisible
7. The Blackbird Girls--Anne Blankman (1 square): Family Secret

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).