Catchy song lyrics are great fun

I’ve played, sung or listened to music all my life — In fact, I don’t think I can drive my truck without music on the radio. I most enjoy Christian, country or jazz standards, but I’m not usually attuned to rock, rap or music I can’t understand. I enjoy various singers or listening to great instrumental pieces — but what I really love are well-written lyrics, some of which are clever and cause me to laugh.

In high school, we listened to many silly songs. Sheb Wooley wrote a clever one about a “people eater” from space. The chorus was, “It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater” — a catchy phrase. 

About the same time, Paul Vance wrote a fun piece with the chorus, “It was an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini” (that she wore for the first time today). Another song during my teenage years was the catchy “Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett — The chorus stated, “He did the Monster Mash. It was a graveyard smash!”

Country music is full of clever songs with unusual lyrics. One great song is Steve Goodman’s “You Never Even Call Me By My Name” (sung by David Allen Coe). Near the song’s ending, the singer says the writer could have written a more perfect song, since great country songs should mention “mama,” “trucks,” “trains,” “drinking” and “prison.” A few verses were added. The resulting clever ending: “I was drunk the day my mama got out of prison and I went to pick her up in the rain. But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck, she got ran over by a damned old train.” I laugh every time I hear it.

Bill Anderson’s “Walk Out Backwards” is innovative — In the lyrics, the man bemoans as she leaves him, “… walk out backwards and I’ll think you’re walking in.” Very clever.

Johnny Cash had a hit song called “One Piece at a Time.” A Detroit autoworker, he laments that he couldn’t afford a Cadillac. He begins stealing parts at work and building his own car. Because this effort spanned numerous years (and many models of Cadillacs) the finished vehicle was a collage of weird auto parts that people laughed at when he drove by. At the song’s end, someone asks what kind of car he was driving and he replies, “Well, it’s a ’49, ’50, ’51, ’52, ’53, ’54, ’55, ’56, ’57, ’58, ’59 automobile … it’s a ’60, ’61, ’62, ’63, ’64, ’65, ’66, ’67, ’68, ’69, ’70 automobile.” Love it.

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