“Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport” by Rolf Harris (1963, #3)

One person’s view:  “‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport’ is awful.  The musicianship and production is ramshackle, and the lyrics are first draft levels of bad.” – music blogger Dr. Nelson Winston

The public’s view:  2.67 / 5.00

If you were trying to write a commercially successful song, you’d likely settle on a popular lyrical theme like romance, dancing, partying, or making fun of Drake.  You probably wouldn’t draft a dying declaration from an Australian rancher to his buddies, charging them with the disposition of his animals and his remains.  But that’s because you are not Rolf Harris.  Harris was lured back from England to his Aussie homeland to host a children’s TV show, a hiring decision that looks about as smart in hindsight as asking the Sex Pistols to mind the evidence locker at a police station.  This relocation led to perhaps the most bizarre top 10 single of the 1960s.

The narrator of “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport” owns a veritable menagerie of Australian wildlife, and each one requires a certain level of attention.  He starts by telling one friend to watch his wallabies feed, cautioning him that they are a dangerous breed.  He goes on to explain that his cockatoo must be kept cool, his platypus must not run amok, and, most important of all, his kangaroo must be tied down.  After the rancher finally dies, his hide is tanned and hung on a shed in accordance with his wishes.  It’s an unusual estate plan overall, but it cleverly avoids inheritance taxes.

Now I must address something unpleasant.  I’ve discussed several controversial songs here and on my #1 hits blog, and have mostly defended them from the political correctness crowd.  I wouldn’t hire Pat Boone or Jason Aldean to provide the entertainment at a civil rights rally, or probably anywhere else, but I don’t think that their songs have racist lyrics.  It’s harder to stick up for “Tie Me Kangaroo Down”, and I’ll explain why.

It turns out that the rancher owns several aboriginal people as slaves, or is at least keeping them in some kind of bondage involving forced labor.  He asks his friend Lou to let them “go loose” upon his death, because they are “of no further use”.  But that’s not the worst part.  These human chattels are on a list with livestock, and they rank behind four different types of animals among the rancher’s concerns.  The dude could expire at any moment and needs to prioritize his instructions, yet he mentions the damn kangaroo three times before he gets around to freeing his workers!  This is as if George Washington’s will had said:  “I beseech my dear friend Alexander Hamilton, who I love as much as one straight man can love another, to clean the cage of my hamsters, Snookums Woo Woo and Cutie Pie.  They are a dangerous breed.  Oh, and he can emancipate my useless slaves if he gets a chance, but the important thing is the hamsters.”

You can make a compelling argument that “Tie Me Kangaroo Down” is one of the biggest disasters in the history of recorded music.  Rolf Harris was a native Australian, yet his lyrics about his own country sound like something Ray Stevens wrote in five minutes while sitting on the toilet.  The song has the tone of a children’s sing-along, but there are multiple reasons why Harris probably shouldn’t sing it with kids.  (The verse about the guy’s skin being taken off and tanned might not even be one of the top reasons.)  Despite all of that, “Tie Me Kangaroo Down” has the type of charm that comes from not taking itself seriously at all.  This is a record that knows it is thoroughly stupid and invites us to laugh at it.  And the rancher may be a colonial enslaver and a weirdo, but at least he dies in the end.  It’s all part of the fun.

My rating:  6 / 10

“Still” by Bill Anderson (1963, #6)

One person’s view:  “It’s a mirthless, wince-inducing slog all-around, in my opinion the worst hit song of the entire year.” – Nic Renshaw @ Pop Goes the Year

The public’s view:  2.53 / 5.00

While I have some editorial discretion in deciding which songs to feature on this blog, my selections are guided by reviews and ratings that others have given.  When I saw that Bill Anderson’s “Still” was one of the most poorly regarded hit singles of 1963, and then listened to the record, I wasn’t thrilled with having to write about it.  This is an emotional song, one that probably means a lot to some people, and I felt bad about potentially exposing it to ridicule.  But then I listened to it again and focused on the lyrics, and realized that anyone choosing “Still” as a sentimental favorite is probably, at a minimum, missing the point.  Either that, or they need to seek professional help.

The best part of “Still” is the chorus, though even this is not exactly brimming with excitement.  The chorus is sung three times, and the two spoken word verses are placed in between like the filling of a double-decker sandwich.  It isn’t quite an edible sandwich, however.  It’s more like two sheets of Styrofoam on a slightly stale Big Mac bun.  Part of the problem is that Anderson is simply not very good as a spoken word performer.  Few people are truly skilled at this, to be fair, but even a so-so spoken section can work when it builds anticipation for some great vocals that follow.  In “Still”, any expectation of a glorious falsetto aria is destroyed when the second verse begins and Anderson is still speaking his lines rather than singing.  Come on, Bill, we’re paying you to use those pipes!

The lyrics are more worrisome than the delivery.  The singer is addressing a woman who broke his heart, and there is initially some ambiguity about how she left him.  My first guess was that this was another ‘60s death disc, and we were going to hear about his wife getting hit by a commuter train while picking up a ChapStick she spotted lying on the tracks.  It soon becomes clear, though, that the characters in this song managed to avoid the transportation hazards that brought an early demise to so many of their cohorts.  Their relationship did not end due to a tragic accident, but because the woman realized that life would be better without Mopey McMopeface tagging along.  It was a smart move for her, but the guy is incapable of processing the break-up in a healthy way.  Rather than gradually recovering from the loss, he admits that his abnormal obsession with his ex is actually getting worse with time.

I reviewed a similarly themed song on my #1 hits blog:  James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful”.  Like “Still”, Blunt’s ballad might superficially be perceived as a touching tribute to a woman, when in fact it’s a distressing psychological portrait of a man descending into self-harm.  I like this about “You’re Beautiful”, though I seem to be in the minority.  That song works for me because of Blunt’s bizarre voice and the lyrics that bounce from one extreme to another, but “Still” doesn’t have any of this manic-depressive energy.  Much of it doesn’t even have singing.  It is just depressing.

“Still” doesn’t insult the listener’s intelligence, so I won’t give it my lowest rating.  However, if I was forced to choose a somber top 10 hit to put on repeat during a rush hour commute, I would pick “Tell Laura I Love Her” over this.  I have a feeling that Laura will get over the death of her Tommy faster than the guy in “Still” recovers from being dumped.

My rating:  2 / 10

“Ahab, the Arab” by Ray Stevens (1962, #5)

One person’s view:  “Even my grandparents, who are Ray Stevens’ target audience, would think this is terrible.” – 1Chops @ Rate Your Music

The public’s view:  1.74 / 5.00

After listening to some of the novelty hits from the early 1960s, I’m convinced that very few Americans of that era ever traveled more than a hundred miles from home or met someone who spoke a different language.  Any foreigner who wore an unfamiliar head covering or who used spices in their food was viewed as an amusing oddity who belonged in a traveling carnival.  That’s the only way I can explain the public’s fascination with songs like “Speedy Gonzales” and “Ahab, the Arab”.  And another example is still to come.

We’re covering “Ahab” today, and I want to get the track’s positive features out of the way first.  It won’t take long.  Ray Stevens describes the characters in “Ahab, the Arab” vividly, based on his childhood memories of reading Arabian Nights.  He does a couple of OK sound effects.  And, as with “Speedy Gonzales”, there is nothing malicious about any of the ethnic generalizations.  One writer says that “Ahab” is “more ignorant than racist,” which is about the highest praise that any serious commentator or critic has given the tune.

Accuracy and consistency are not strong points of “Ahab”.  Ray tells us that the title character sneaks “silently through the night” on his camel to Fatima’s tent, yet we can hear a noisy clop-clop the whole time.  Clyde the Camel walking on sand sounds like Secretariat’s grandson trotting across my upstairs neighbor’s hardwood floor (which happens more frequently than I would prefer).  I guess Stevens didn’t know that camels have padding on their feet.  Then there’s the matter of Fatima wearing a bone through her pierced nose.  The lyrics tell us of her fondness for American culture, so why is she emulating a custom from the South Pacific?  I’m pretty sure she didn’t get this fashion idea from Jackie Kennedy.

I’ve already written about two Ray Stevens songs on my #1 hits blog.  Though I was kinder to them than most reviewers have been, I complained about the annoying laugh track in “The Streak”.  “Ahab” might benefit from a laugh track, however, because I have trouble finding the jokes.  I guess the big punch line is that Fatima likes Hershey bars and Mad Magazine and the Grand Ole Opry.  It’s an attempt to create humor from a surprising incongruity, and this can often be effective.  For example, it would be amusing if the baby in “Baby Sittin’ Boogie” suddenly started talking clearly and told Buzz Clifford to shut the fuck up.  Fatima’s incongruity is that she has abruptly transitioned from an unconvincing Arab stereotype to an unconvincing American stereotype.  It isn’t exactly a har-de-har-har moment of hilarity.  You know what would really be incongruous?  If Ray Stevens researched a topic before writing a song about it.

So the plot of “Ahab” isn’t funny, but at least there’s nothing else interesting about it either.  Ahab isn’t an underdog character, and we aren’t motivated to root for him.  He’s a wealthy sheik who wears jewelry that is literally worth as much as a house.  He escapes his precarious situation not through any skill or cunning, but because he owns the fastest (albeit loudest) transportation device in the region.  Essentially, this is just a story about a rich douchebag sleeping with another rich douchebag’s wife.  And it takes place in a foreign country where people are weird.  The end.

My rating:  1 / 10

“Speedy Gonzales” by Pat Boone (1962, #6)

One person’s view:  “Thankfully, this type of casual racism now looks horribly dated.” – Graham Fyfe @ Aphoristic Album Reviews

The public’s view:  3.02 / 5.00

Pat Boone is tired of taking everyone’s shit.  At least, that’s the message I got from the 2021 Fox News interview in which he responded to claims that the cartoon mouse Speedy Gonzales was a racist Latino stereotype.  Boone’s old hit record that sampled the character’s voice was now also under attack, and the entertainer wasn’t about to put up with it.  He pointed out that the resourceful rodent from Warner Bros. is beloved by people in many Spanish-speaking countries.  Cementing his defense, he said that Benjamin Netanyahu enjoys Boone’s song and affectionately refers to Pat as “Speedy” every time they see each other.

I have a few follow-up questions that Fox News neglected to ask.  Why was the Prime Minister of Israel having meetings with Pat Boone?  Was he trying to counter a possible alliance between Hezbollah and Bobby Vinton?  And why couldn’t the singer find a more appropriate person, perhaps someone who lives within 6,000 miles of the region, who could vouch for his good standing in Latin America?  Nonetheless, Boone was not wrong.  The criticism of his record is an example of politically correct silliness.  It’s easy to grab headlines by calling a song racist, but oftentimes the better word to use is “stupid”.

Boone’s “Speedy Gonzales” is about a hard-drinking Mexican man who coincidentally shares a moniker with a popular cartoon character.  It’s a solid concept accompanied by an acceptable melody, and it succeeds as a straight-ahead early ‘60s rock song.  It’s even a little edgy if you interpret Speedy’s nickname as an emasculating jibe at his lack of stamina in the bedroom.  I doubt that unclean thoughts like this were in Pat Boone’s head while he was making the record, but it’s nice that the lyrics can work on a couple of different levels.

Unfortunately, Speedy’s wife wanted to contribute her vocals to the mix.  This woman evidently loves to sing, even though she could lose a talent contest to a smoke alarm.  You want to know why Speedy won’t come home, lady?  It’s because he has ears.

The song ventures into full novelty territory when two sound bites of Mel Blanc’s Speedy Gonzales cartoon voice are added.  Now it is an interruptabeat, just like “Baby Sittin’ Boogie”.  Someone could probably build a pretty good comedy track of this type using Blanc’s voices, but in “Speedy Gonzales” there is no common theme holding everything together.  Boone is singing about a philandering sot and a screeching harpy of a wife, while Blanc is portraying the world’s fastest and cleverest mouse.  Cramming these characters into the same song, just because all of them are Mexican, is blatantly contrived.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s offensive.  The mouse is a stereotype, but his interjections about tortillas, chili peppers, and tequila are a positive stereotype because these products are a source of pride for Mexico.  Imagine if Pat Boone’s producer had worked on “The Night Chicago Died”, and had inserted snippets of a guy ad-libbing about deep-dish pizza and Polish sausage.  You wouldn’t say, “Wow, that song is racist toward Chicagoans!”  You’d say, “What the hell does this have to do with Al Capone’s gang and the shoot-out?”

I’m someone who appreciates a good novelty record.  I could expound for pages on the bounteous wonders of Weird Al’s catalog, and I might just do so someday if you’re not careful.  Pat Boone, however, is not Weird Al.  This song might have been the stand-out single of Boone’s career if he had not tried to make it funny.

My rating:  3 / 10

“P.T. 109” by Jimmy Dean (1962, #8)

One person’s view:  “[T]he types of people who find naval combat fascinating are just not the sorts who know how to pen a quality pop tune.” – Nic Renshaw @ Pop Goes the Year

The public’s view:  2.43 / 5.00

As some have observed, Jimmy Dean was a lot like Tommy Lee.  First he was famous for his music, but now he’s better known for his sausage.  Let’s see if we can figure out why Dean’s songs have faded away while his eponymous breakfast meats continue to keep cardiologists busy.

Dean’s most memorable release was “Big Bad John”, a story song about a hulking man who saved the lives of his coworkers during a mine collapse.  After that record hit #1 and won him various accolades, Dean couldn’t quite move on from it.  He kept trying to recapture the magic by making sequels to “Big Bad John”, which would have been easier if he hadn’t killed off the title character at the end of the song.  One such sequel had John miraculously emerge from the wreckage of the mine, despite being permanently entombed there under a marble monument in the original story.  He was underground and dead again in the next song, and the narrative moved on to his son “Little Bitty Big John”.  Dean should have signed up as a writer for General Hospital, because John’s saga was turning into a bad soap opera.

With “P.T. 109”, Dean took a slight detour – and I do mean slight.  This one was a Johnny Horton-style military march that told the tale of a different hero named John.  Of course, the P.T. 109 story had already been drummed into all of America’s heads by the Kennedy campaign a couple of years earlier.  When Dean discloses that the guy in the song is the President, it isn’t exactly a stunning plot twist.

I suspect that the hagiography didn’t sit well with a lot of people in 1962, because Kennedy was still an active political figure who was expected to run in another election.  You can imagine the outcry if radio stations today played a song praising Pete Buttigieg.  Dean had no way of knowing this at the time, but if he had held this record back until the end of ‘63 he probably would have had another #1 single.

One thing I like about “P.T. 109” is its sing-along chorus.  Yes, I know we shouldn’t revel in the destruction of a U.S. naval vessel, but that chorus is a rollicking good time.  The catchy melody contrasts with “Big Bad John”, which is almost a spoken word affair.  On the other hand, it’s way too easy to write lyrics like these when a great story of heroism, patriotism, and survival is sitting out there in the public domain.  “P.T. 109” adds little, if anything, to what was widely known.

To prove how trivial it is to write a story song from true events, I’ve penned some lyrics about the only president from my lifetime who had a similar moment of combat valor:  George H.W. Bush.  As a bonus, I managed to write my song without using any slurs and without mocking the enemy’s “heathen gods”.  You can find my work below.  It is to be performed in the style of “Big Bad John”.  Now all I need is a sing-along chorus, and I’ve got a hit.

My rating:  5 / 10  (This is for “P.T. 109”.  My song is a 10 / 10.)

The Ballad of George Herbert Walker Bush

You know all about John Kennedy
But you haven’t heard about the Barbara III
The plane flown by a lanky man named George

The Japanese were at their island base
When bombs started falling all over the place
It was a special delivery from Uncle Sam and George

The enemy fired with deadly aim
And our skilled pilot wasn’t to blame
But it would be a fateful day for preppy George

The Barbara III took a lethal hit
The turret gunner said “Oh shit,
I’m jumping with my chute now, goodbye George!”

“Those guys down there aren’t very nice.
They’ll put us on a plate with soy and rice.
Try not to bail ‘til we’re over sea,” said George

Four hours adrift with sharks around
Most of the men were caught or drowned
The only one to make it home was George

The war is over, Mr. Truman said
George just scoffed and said, “Not ‘til I’m dead.
Vengeance has a name, and that name is George.”

This man was a patriot, brave and true
He knew his mission was still not through
There would be one last attack from George

It took him years to make his plans
He kissed some butts and he shook some hands
But diplomacy was all an act for George

He embraced economics of a voodoo kind
And spent eight years just stuck in line
If the Senate ties or Ronnie dies, call George

One last man stood in his way
A Democrat from Massachusetts Bay
“I bet he likes to burn the flag,” said George

Well, he threw some mud and won 40 states
But 47 years was long to wait
He could really bide his time, that clever George

He was losing his job to Bill or to Ross
When he came eye to eye with the Tokyo boss
It was now or never for Operation George

“You shot me down and ate my friends.
It’s too late now to make amends.
You’re about to feel my wrath,” said President George

That was when he got his chance
He spewed his barf on the Prime Minister’s pants
“I won’t pay for the dry cleaning,” sneered George

He showed Japan who won the fight
He totally ruined their dinner that night
But there was still one final speech from George

“You may think my revenge is done,
But you haven’t met my frat boy son.
The whole world will live in fear of a man named George.”

“Baby Sittin’ Boogie” by Buzz Clifford (1961, #6)

One person’s view:  “This is one of those songs you might want to hear once a year, but not twice.” – pcno2832 @ YouTube

The public’s view:  2.11 / 5.00

This entry is about a type of novelty song called an interruptabeat.  (I’m the only one who calls it that, but no one else has bothered to give this style a name.)  An interruptabeat is a conventional music track that is sprinkled with jarring sound effects which completely stop the surrounding rhythm each time they are played.  It’s the inverse of the “break-in” records that were popularized by Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman, in which snippets of music are inserted into a spoken monologue for comedic effect.  Goodman tried to keep this latter type of humor alive until the 1980s by making a new break-in record based on every hit movie that came along, but he finally quit after his E.T. spoof sold hardly any copies.  We can all be glad that he stopped before Terms of Endearment was released.

The finest exemplar of the interruptabeat genre is “It’s a Gas”, a 1963 record that was distributed in specially marked copies of Mad Magazine.  Countless spelling lessons and church services were disrupted by children who tried to reproduce the sonorous eructations they heard on this track.  Meanwhile, parents were apt to find their hi-fi needles damaged after their kids repeatedly played the paper-thin flexible phonograph disc.  Despite not charting on the Hot 100, “It’s a Gas” certainly burped its way into America’s hearts.

Buzz Clifford’s “Baby Sittin’ Boogie” is an interruptabeat about a baby who the narrator’s girlfriend is babysitting.  The kid really enjoys rock ‘n’ roll, and he imitates the singers on the records that the babysitter plays.  After every few lines that Clifford sings, the little rascal interjects with a bit of this mimicry.  He is not particularly accurate, but what do you expect?  He’s an infant!  It’s hard to obtain decent vocal training at his age, because Juilliard doesn’t usually accept people who throw strained carrots across the room at their audition.  (Barry Manilow managed to get in anyhow.)

As you might imagine, this song gets a little annoying after a minute or so.  The babbling is mostly incoherent, and at one point it sounds like they put the microphone on the wrong end of the baby.  I have to respect the authenticity, though.  Anyone making a track like this today would rely on AI-generated infant noises, but “Baby Sittin’ Boogie” was created with the help of the producer’s two young children.  I wonder whether they ever listed this experience on a résumé when they grew up, or would it have set expectations too high?  You might not want to brag about doing vocals on a hit record at 14 months unless you’ve also translated Shakespeare’s works into Esperanto by age 11.  Employers like to see some progression.

Although this tune was written by a songwriter from the U.S., it did not stay within our borders.  It was later remade by acts in France, Germany, and Great Britain for their local markets.  Americans often complain of being treated rudely when they cross the Atlantic, and usually assume this is because of discontent with U.S. foreign policy.  I think I’ve found the real reason:  Europeans still remember that we gave them “Baby Sittin’ Boogie”.

My rating:  3 / 10