Remember the song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” I’ve come up with a new take: “Where Have All the Silly Songs Gone?”
Recently I discovered a goldmine called 100 Novelty Songs, a 4-CD set available on Amazon for the princely sum of $18.00 CAD. Most of these tracks date from the 1950s and 60s, a time when the radio airwaves were replete with funny novelty numbers like Ahab the Arab, Purple People Eater, Pink Shoe Laces, Alley Oop, Monster Mash, The Chipmunk Song, I’m Henry VIII, Junkfood Junkie, and yes, that anthem of bad taste, They’re Coming to Take You Away, Ha, Ha.
But where are all the specialty songs today? And what does it say about us if we can’t loosen up a bit, even for two or three minutes? Remember P.D.Q. Bach, or Flanders & Swann with their “Hippopotamus Song,” or Anna Russell with her spoofs of opera? I may be out of the loop, but where are these people now?
According to Wikipedia, “Novelty songs achieved great popularity during the 1920s and ‘30s, and had a resurgence of interest in the ‘50s and ‘60s.” But after that, sadly, the genre begins to fade out. Wikipedia’s list of novelty songs that have charted in the top ten includes 18 numbers in the ‘30s and ‘40s, a jump to 28 in the ‘50s, and a whopping 31 in the ‘60s. However, the next period listed spans five whole decades from 1970 to 2020, a long half-century with only 20 hits.
Where did all the silly songs go? One answer is that they went off the airwaves and onto the internet. Take a listen, for example, to “Bugs” by Jesse Welles, who has a huge underground following. This is a fine, fun, and funny song that fits our category nicely (though you might want to compare his latest offering, “Death by Firing Squad,” an edgy protest song.) Or how about this cool number, “Seagulls! (Stop It Now),” by none other than Master Yoda of Star Wars fame, which racked up 160 M views.
And let’s not forget Weird Al Yankovic, who in four decades has released over a dozen novelty-rich albums. However, you’ve probably never heard one of his songs on the radio, unless you happened to be a fan of the Doctor Demento show back in the 70’s. And then there was Frank Zappa, who created no less than 62 wild and wooly albums, but who scored only one top ten hit.
In general, in my random sampling of YouTube novelty songs, very few have the flavor of pure silliness and simple naiveté that characterizes the classics of the ’50s and ‘60s. Instead these modern web songs tend to be classy, groovy, grungy, sophisticated, or slick, but seldom just plain silly. Something has been lost.
The good old Beatles had their share of novelty songs, including Yellow Submarine and Octopus’s Garden. But do you know Paui McCartney’s favorite Fab Four song? This might surprise you, because you may never have heard of it, despite it being the flip side of the classic “Let It Be.” It’s called “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number).” I can’t begin to describe this song. Even after you listen to it you won’t believe what you just heard, or that it was ever released. It’s really just the Beatles having a ton of fun. Which is exactly what Paul loves about it, simply that it was (to quote his words) “so insane” and “so much fun to record!”
I began thinking about the topic of fun novelty songs a few weeks ago, when I went to a play in Toronto that opened with a silly ditty about Jesus. Well, silly isn’t quite the right word—it’s whimsical, poignant, and serious all at once. Son of a Preacherman is a one-man show written and performed by Ins Choi, who created the hit TV series Kim’s Convenience. This brilliant and deeply moving play deserves more words that I can devote to it here. For now, I only want to highlight the opening song, “Birkenstock Jesus.” While the lyrics alone fall far short of conveying the real spirit of this jog-trot, folksy tune, here’s just a taste:
If Jesus came to visit us today would he recycle all he had?
Would he wear Birkenstocks or flip flops or Crocs?
Would he ban every plastic bag? …
What kind of music would he listen to?
What kind of shows would he PVR?
Would he like Lamar, Lecrae, and Lauren Daigle
and be a fan of Jesus Christ Superstar?
If Jesus came to visit us today how would he react to church?
Would he respond, “Well done, my good and faithful servants”?
Or would he say, “What the—“ *
I love that last line! In my experience, whenever revival visits a church there’s often a lot of silliness—people laughing crazily, rolling on the floor, making animal sounds, pogo-sticking, etc. God seems to like this, He enjoys a good time. I guess He likes getting us our of our straitjackets. I think God was all over the Pythons and their “Ministry of Silly Walks.” But where is our silly Christian worship? Is it not okay to cut loose in church? As Montaigne observed, “Our life consists partly in folly, partly in good sense; whoever reflects on it only in a staid fashion leaves more than half of himself behind.”
* Lyrics by Ins Choi, Son of a Preacherman (Anansi, Toronto, 2026), p 5.
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