The Dancinest Hemisphere of All!

Twenty-five years later, The Simpsons still teaches me about the worst of pop culture from before I was born.

Remember, if you will, Hooray for Everything, the group of “clean-cut young go-getters” that perform during the halftime show in the episode “Bart vs. Thanksgiving.” You only hear a few seconds of their song, but Homer seems to enjoy it enough.

I have had those few seconds of that stupid song in my head ever since. It’s my go-to mental example of the kind of insipid, crowd-pleaser pop you might have heard at a halftime show back in the day. I figured that’s what the Simpsons staff had in mind when they wrote it. But then last night, I caught the end of an FXX rerun of “Goin’ to Praiseland,” the 2001 episode in which Ned Flanders opens a Christian-themed amusement park. Even though the episode’s guest star is Shawn Colvin, that same terrible song plays over the end credits, and you hear more of it than you do in “Bart vs. Thanksgiving.”

“Surely, they just had more of the song left over from when they first wrote it back in 1990,” I told myself. “Surely, no actual song could be so terribly catchy but also so terrible. Surely.”

Then I Shazamed it. It’s real, though I doubt I’m the only my age who had only experienced it via The Simpsons. The song is “Get Dancin’” by a band I’d never heard of, because I would have remembered a name as bad as Disco-Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes. In its entirely,  “Get Dancin’” is even dumber and brighter and bouncier and more annoying than I could have even imagined. It’s worse than “The Hustle.” Hell, it’s seven minutes long.

And now you have it in your head.

That’s not the only appearance of Hooray for Everything on The Simpsons, by the way. They perform a worse cover of a more recognizable song in “Selma’s Choice.”

I’d like to think that the same expert in terrible, impossibly upbeat pop music was responsible for introducing me to Lesley Gore’s “Sunshine, Rainbows and Lollipops” in “Marge on the Lam.” And maybe Homer singing “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy”? And maybe Homer singing “Spanish Flea”?

I was equally surprised to learn that the lyrics Homer was singing weren’t made up for the show, that “Spanish Flea” even had lyrics, and that a recording group ever thought their name should be The Doodletown Pipers.

Someone clearly knew their shit. And their shit was shit music.

Sit Down on the Chair / Think About Your Dance Affairs

I make no excuses for being a complicated man whose likes are separated only by a small margin from his dislikes. Today’s example: an obscure ’80s song that sounds not all that different from the one I made fun of just last week.

Pros: Unlike the last song, it’s not about King Kong. Cons: Unlike the last song, it’s not about King Kong.

The band is Scotch. The song is 1984’s “Disco Band.” The genre is italo disco. And the country of origin is Italy. (Yes, that combo did make it somewhat more difficult to Google.) I’ve written about italo disco before, and all those same virtues and failings apply here: “Disco Band” has the trappings of the more familiar ’80s songs I love, but with the added novelties of being something I hadn’t heard a thousand times before as well as being sung in irreparably broken English. (Sample lyrics: “Baby / Baby / You’re my really disco band / I like you.”) Also, it must be said: For a song that opens out with a sample of someone coughing, it builds into something that’s surprisingly not terrible.

I’m not saying this is a good song, exactly. It’s kitsch. But it’s immensely listenable kitsch, unlike the King Kong song, which is something you just have to listen to out of the sheer astonishment that a group of people got together and all agreed that yes, in fact, this is a good, worthwhile thing to which humans will enjoy listening.

Here is that song again, for posterity, so the world may know:

So yeah, my musical choices are basically indefensible.

Italo disco, previously:

• Dorrine Hollier, “Crazy Night”
• Daydream, “Crazy”
• Baby’s Gang, “Happy Song”
• Clio, “Eyes”
• Roni Griffith, “Desire” (honorable mention)

King Kong Dancing

(Context: Nate is my college roommate and my best friend.)

Hi Nate!

I know you and Ashley have been working on getting the wedding together, and I know you specifically requested that I not make a speech or attempt to influence the creation of the wedding in any way, but I just happened across something that I thought would be good for the ceremony. Don’t you think it would be good if you guys walked down the aisle to this?

I knew you’d like it. Thanks in advance for helping me feel like part of the wedding!

Love,
Drew

Drew,

I only listened to 30 seconds of this before I closed the window. What is wrong with you?

Nate

Hi Nate!

I think what you should maybe do is listen to the whole song before you make a judgment about it. I know it’s kind of weird at the beginning when the narrator says “New York City, eight-o’-clock news,” because you probably won’t get married in New York, but I think if you ride it out for the full seven and a half minutes, you’ll see it's actually the best song to walk down the aisle to — well, dance down the aisle to, but you probably figured that out.

Here it is again!

Do you need to borrow my gorilla suit?

Thanks again for letting me help. I really feel like this is my day, too.

Love,
Drew

Drew,

Why the hell do you think it would take us seven and a half minutes to walk down the aisle? Also, why is the song that long? Also, what is this? Was this a tie-in for the remake of King Kong? It’s terrible. You like terrible things.

Nate

Hi Nate!

Well, I guess I figured it would take a while for, like, your parents and grandparents to dance down the aisle. And no, it’s not associated with the Jessica Lange movie, I don’t think. This seems to have come out about a decade later, but I think the fact that it's more of a free-standing work should make you feel more able to use it in the wedding and make it your own, you know?

It's probably worth it to listen to it again, so here you go!

Glad you’ve come around!

Love,
Drew

Drew,

Please stop. We’re very busy, and I'm only taking time to write to you now because I want to make sure you know that the King Kong song will not be part of our ceremony.

You will be seated in the back.

Please don't do anything weird.

That songs sucks. Again, just please stop.

Nate

Hi Nate!

I think you're maybe overlooking how the song would be good because it can help raise awareness about Africa?

Mull it over.

See, now you have to use it because you feel bad.

Can I get a plus-two for the reception?

Love,
Drew

Drew,

Well, now you've done it. You’re not getting an invitation. We’re not even telling you where the ceremony is. Now you’ll never know whether we use your song or not.

You brought this on yourself.

Nate

(Context: Jill is my college roommate and my second-best friend.)

Hi Jill!

I know you said you were having a small wedding, but I think I just found a reason for you to invite everyone you know. I'm just going to leave this hear and float the question of how you envisioned yourself walking down the aisle. However awesome it was in your head, prepare to be blown away.

You're welcome!

Love,
Drew

Where Monsters Grow in Garbage Cans

It’s Friday, and you may need a release from the grind of work. It’s for this reason that I present you with Dorine Hollier’s 1984 performance on Superclassificia Show, which I’m unsure how to explain. Please just watch. You will not be bored.

Some notes:

• Dorine’s stage laugh makes me think she’s never heard any human laugh ever.
• Her dancing : other people’s dancing :: Italian conversational gestures : how non-Italians gesture in conversation
• Dorine occasionally bears a passing resemblance to Tracy Morgan. Look for those moments.
• You can’t say she’s not giving it her all.
• She’s also a good dancer. It’s just that the song requires her to dance like a crazy person.
• If she reminds you of Cha Cha DiGregorio from Grease, you’re in good company. In the red universe, this is the career that Cha Cha found after high school.
• I wish I could shake off a cardigan the way Dorine takes off that jacket.
• This is how everyone should dance. I may yet.

And here are the lyrics, as best as I can figure them:

You see me walking with my man
You go your way
We go ours
[psychotic laughter]
That’s a way to talk!
[psychotic laughter]
Don’t laugh!
I’ll bet you want
You never dare
Capture the girl
That walks on air
You’re such a nut
You make me scream
Let’s all go strut
’Til like a dream
The situation’s out of hand
That’s good! Mmm — divine!
In this confusion I connect
I correct!

[chorus:
Tonight! Crazy night!
Oh boy, what a sight!
What a way to love!
Tonight! Crazy night!
Oh boy, we’ll be tight
What a way to love!]

We’ll walk along
In weirdo land
Where monsters grow
In garbage cans
Seems like the moon
Has grown a nose
Dance like a loon
A million shows!
Imagination never ends
My mind understands
In exploration of my brain
I correct!

[chorus twice]

[bizarre spoken section:
Situation’s out of hand — that’s good!
And this situation I connect
Now there’s a law across the land that says there will be no law
Well, the funny moon at the end of the nose]

[psychotic laughter]
Don’t laugh!
I’ll bet you want
You never dare
Capture the girl
That walks on air
You’re such a nut
You make me scream
Let’s all go strut
’Til like a dream
The situation’s out of hand
That’s good! Mmm — divine!
In this confusion I connect
I correct!

[chorus]

Italo disco, previously:

• The Android Siters, “The Robots Are Coming”
• Daydream, “Crazy”
• “Happy Song,” Baby’s Gang With Boney M
• Vanessa, “Upside-Down”
• Clio, “Eyes”
• The Portlandia theme song / Gary Low’s “I Want You”

As You Walk Along With Your Ding-Ding-Dong

Just watch this this 1975 video of the song “Ding a Dong,” the winning entry of the 1975 Eurovision Song Contest, as performed by the inexplicably named disco band Teach-In.

Okay, so a few things.

Why does the audience look so miserable? Okay, sure, the song sucks, but why would they go to this show in the first place?

Wait, was this actually East Germany?

Was attendance to the disco party compulsory?

Were they shopped in after the fact using so-called “green screen” technology?

Is there a song where the word dong gets mentioned more often?

I think Dina put it best when she attempted to comprehend how this thing came about: “Someone had to have written this down at some point. And then showed it to someone else. And then they recorded it.”

Another point for Dina: “Is she saying ‘Maybe it’s a bigot’?”

Is the whole point of the song to be constantly singing so you never feel sad? That seems like a poor plan, seeing as how no one will want to be your friend if you’re dinging dongs all day. I mean, she’s there singing this song on a microphone and no one in the audience looks remotely happy. WHERE DID SINGING GET YOU, LADY FROM TEACH-IN?

At 2:03, she attempts to make contact with one of the robots in the audience and my heart just aches for her, this lonely ding-dong woman from West Germany.

This is all. Go forth and ding all the dongs.

OMG, you have to hear this, but not because it’s good, previously:

• “Happy Song,” by Boney M, as well as other disco-based school invasions
• “I’m on Fire,” by Maggie Mae
• “You Bring Out the Savage in Me,” by Frances Day
• “Banana,” by Jane Chiquita
• “At the Same Time, You Are Crazy Mind, Crazy Mind,” by Daydream
• “The Swim,” by Little Nell
• “Les sucettes (The Lollipops),” by France Gall
• “Neon City 1978,” by Mistral

Me Gusta la Banana

I think we have a new contender for worst song ever: the 1984 recording “Banana” by someone calling herself Jane Chiquita.

If the pairing of name and subject matter seem a little on the nose, then you too may be questioning whether this could be a joke. Or maybe it’s just some poor woman’s realization of her banana-centric destiny, at which point she, having completed the task for which she was sent to Earth, simply stopped existing. What I’d like to think — what I’m hoping, really — is that the song is about dicks and the suits in the studio said, “No, Jane, you can’t record a song just about dicks, even though this is Italy,” and so she was all, “Fine. Let’s make it about flesh-colored swords. No, wait — bananas! That’s easier to rhyme.” Because I can’t wrap my head around anyone thinking it would be a good idea just to make a song about how much they like bananas, though it wouldn’t be the first time someone had been tricked into singing about dicks.

Me being shortsighted, I took Latin as my foreign language, and so I can’t be sure what she’s actually singing about? Is this song in Spanish or Italian? Can someone smarter tell me if the lyrics are filthy? Or is it just a celebration of potassium?

Rhythm-Based School Invasions of 1980s Europe

Awkward. Improbable. Dated. Carbon-dated. These are terms that a thinking individual could put toward the music video for “Happy Song,” the 1984 “hit” by the West German eurodisco-reggae group Boney M. I, for one, can’t take my eyes off it, what with its earnest efforts to sell something that no one wants, needs or even know existed until they watched this video. And I think I can do it the most justice with a summary of what I believe to be its plot. And here goes:

A demonic force travels through an elementary school, lingering for a moment on an apparent portrait of Adolf Hitler (it’s at the 0:26 mark) and inspiring the children to rebel against their teachers. The demonic force assumes the form of two black men who dance into the classroom and, with promises of afterschool dancing and ice cream parties, steal the children, Pied Piper-style. At the same time, a separate presence — some sort of cackling blond devil infant to whom the camera occasionally cuts away — seems to have possessed the one female student, causing her to speak in a baby voice. It’s unclear whether these presences are working together or against each other, but regardless the children end up taking a bus to an ice cream party that’s inexplicably attended by the very teachers they fled. The teachers remove their academic robes and begin dancing. The female student continues to talk in a baby voice.

Yeah, I feel pretty comfortable with that. Honestly, that may be the second-best summary I’ve ever provided, the first being this one. Please, now, watch the video for yourself:

Now, with all that in mind, think about this: Its lack of any reggae sounds makes “Happy Song” an outlier in the Boney M discography, and that’s probably because “Happy Song” is a cover — and, believe it or not, an improvement — of a song released in 1983 by the Italian group Baby’s Gang, which also had this song “Challenger.” I’m posting it below twice, because YouTube has two difference versions — a full version in black and white and then a colorized version that cuts away to what looks like Power Point effects of text scrolling across the screen in ways that are never impressive. It’s… weird.

But I make a point of writing about all this because the “Challenger” video is remarkably similar to the “Happy Song” one: Singing, dancing people manage to steal an entire school’s worth of youths. It even features a woman speaking in an inexplicable baby voice. Isn’t that kind of weird, as far as a narrative for related music videos to have: School invasions in which the children all get kidnapped by singing, dancing people and also there’s a woman who talks in a baby’s voice? Is that baby-talking girl the titular Baby who owns the gang? Was this an 80s trend that I just didn’t know about until now? Was I lucky to be spared this by having been educated in the U.S.? And finally, what do you think they did with kids once they took them away? Do you think they went all Pied Piper on them?

And finally, there’s the question that I’m most reluctant to ask: How embarrassed should I feel if I’m kind of into these songs, their flaming lameness notwithstanding? Is it the expert synthesizer at work? Yeah, it’s that. It must be that.

Drew overthinks bad music:

• Let’s Get Awkwardly Physical
• The Robots Are Coming  
• The Inside of Lisa Turtle’s Brain 

Let’s Get Awkwardly Physical

Do you love Olivia Newton-John but feel that her greatest achievements could be improved upon? Then you might have a bit in common with Vanessa, the Dutch-born singer who recorded the song “Upside-Down” in 1982, about a year after Newton-John released “Let’s Get Physical.”

It’s not so much that the song itself draws on “Let’s Get Physical” but just that Vanessa — who looks like Vanna White as styled by Dolly Parton — decided to steal the original video’s whole workout motif. Not that Olivia should have owned for eternity, exactly, but she at least deserved to keep it for a year or so. I’d imagine that Vanessa and friends didn’t realize that the early 80s vibe and the decidedly low-budge aesthetic, when combined with the gym setting, either skews porny or specifically gay porny. (You know, in the way that happened with that awful thing that Bruce Jenner did. No, the other one. No, the other one.) Either way, if you do not feel weird about touching surfaces after watching this video, you are weird.

Overall, the result is enthusiastically baffling. Bonus points for the part at 1:49, when the ridiculousness of doing the whole situation overcomes the dude with the mustache and he starts laughing. I have to hand it to him: He lasted longer than I would have gone without laughing or barfing.

The Robots Are Coming

What’s so notable about The Android Sisters’ 1984 song “The Robots Are Coming”? Despite the title, the name of the band and the fact that it sounds like a porny version of the Main Street Electrical Parade theme? This song is unusual in that it has a twist: At one point, the mantra of “The robots are coming” gets paired up with a weirdly sexy, synth “ooh,” giving you the listener the opportunity to wonder if the robots aren’t just coming but they’re also actually coming.

And that, friends, is why The Android Sisters are everybody’s favorite 80s band. 

Her Eyes Aren’t the Only Body Part That’s Stormy, I’ll Bet

I don’t know exactly what kind of relationship the narrator has with this woman whose name is apparently not Wendy but the more unfortunately-connoted Windy, but if you actually listen to the lyrics, it’s clear that Windy is some kind of psychopath.

Who’s peeking’ out from under a stairway
Calling a name that’s lighter than air?
Who’s bending down to give me a rainbow?
Everyone knows it’s Windy
Who’s tripping down the streets of the city
Smilin’ at everybody she sees?
Who's reaching’ out to capture a moment
?
Everyone knows it’s Windy
And Windy has stormy eyes

That flash at the sound of lies
And Windy has wings to fly

Above the cloud (above the clouds!)

Clearly, Windy is a 60s-era Manic Pixie Dream Girl, though she might be hiding under stairway for the same reasons that earned her the name Windy.

All that said, however, I feel like this song would make a great soundtrack for, say, spinning in a field of daisies or skipping down the street on an April afternoon. You know — reaching out to capture a moment.

 No, wait — why is she bending over to give him a “rainbow”? What the hell is this song about, anyway?

Simple Times, Stupid Music

The thing is, I like old stuff. I’m not someone who goes around only looking at the popular culture of previous generations with my mind focused on now and how all the not-now things are different and therefore bad. But there’s a certain era of music that I don’t really understand, and its the same one that gave us that “You say potato” song and that “Roly Poly” song from Pillow Talk. At this point in American culture, adults seem to have found entertainment in the kind of songs that today are sung by babies and perhaps children on bus trips who want test how close they can push their driver into taking the entire vehicle over a guardrail. I mean, what other purpose could “One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall” possibly serve?

Not long ago — but long enough, and you’ll shortly realize why — I was standing in a Borders and was subjected to one of these songs: Cab Calloway’s “Everybody Eats When They Come Over to My House.” I’m not saying it’s managerial decisions like this one that caused Borders to cease, but I’m willing to bet it didn’t help.

(And no, I do not know why the background image for the song is a butt. The other version I found was actually more offensive.)

Listen, if you like, or just check out the lyrics, but I’m boggled as to how this was okay for adults to enjoy. I’m actually further confused about whether ol’ Cab meant for, like, half of his food rhymes to sound sexual, though it’s hard to imagine he didn’t think about the implications of that opening pair of lines, “Have a banana, Hannah / Try the salami, Tommy.” And then the thing that seems strangest to me is Calloway’s seeming inability to find actual human people’s names that rhyme with food, which caused him to invite to his dinner party people named Mandrake, Irvy, Mendel, Fagel and Nashville. (Maybe everyone eats at your house because all the party guests suck?)

If this sort of thing gets to you to — and it should, thinking humans! — please examine below the lyrics to “Everybody Eats When They Have Come Over to My House,” which I wanted to highlighted in a matter that reflects my frustrations but I could not figure out how to do that on the new Blogger:

Have a banana, Hannah
Try the salami, Tommy
Get with the gravy, Davy
Everybody eats when they come to my house 

Try a tomato, Plato
Here’s cacciatori, Dory
Taste of bologna, Tony
Everybody eats when they come to my house 

I've fixed your favorite dishes
Hopin' this good food fills ya
Work my hands to the bone in the kitchen alone
You better eat if it kills ya 

Pass me a pancake, Mandrake
Havin’ a derby, Irvy
Lookin the fendel, Mendel
Everybody eats when they come to my house 

Hannah, Davy, Tommy, Dora, Mandrake
Everybody eats when they come to my house 

Pasta fazoula, Tallulah
Oh, do have a bagel, Fagel
Now don't be so bashful, Nashville
Everybody eats when they come to my house 

Hey, this is a party, Marty
Well, you get the cherry, Jerry
Now look, don't be so picky, Mickey
Cause everybody eats when they come to my house 

All of my friends are welcome
Don't make me coax you, moax you
Eat the tables, the chairs, the napkins — who cares?
You gotta eat if it chokes ya 

Oh, do have a knish, Nisha
Pass him the latke, Matke
Chili con carne for Barney
Everybody eats when they come to my house 

Face, Buster, share, chops, fump
Everybody eats when they come to my house
Everybody eats when they come to my house

Also, moax you? Also, I feel real bad for the guy nicknamed “Taste of Bologna” Tony.

Also, neither here nor there, really, but no one pronounces it “poh-tah-toh.”

She’s on Fire

This lady, this Maggie Mae, moves like she has a nerve disorder that she’s determined will not hold her back in life.

No, wait — she moves like she is being constantly bitten by tiny spiders and she’s trying to shake off the spiders.

No, wait — she moves like your mom’s friend at her thirtieth high school reunion when she mixed a white wine spritzer with her mood-stabilizer pills and ended up on the news.

No, wait — she’s actually moving like she’s literally on fire and she just never learned the stop-drop-roll procedure.

No, wait — the way she just starts herk-a-jerking out of the crowd and toward the stage makes me think she’s actually just a crazy woman in the audience who brought her own microphone, and the real Maggie Mae is standing just off stage, asking “Who’s this bitch who stole my fucking number?”

Nice glasses, though.

(Via PCL LinkDump.)

Shelly Duvall’s Hips

So there’s three things going on here: my fascination with bad 80s pop music, a childhood fondness for Dr. Demento and my fascination with horrible, strange things that defied plausibility and happened. The three may well be related.

First, the soundtrack to a neon sweatband generation. I have a complicated relationship with “Bette Davis Eyes.” If I hear it, it plays in my head over and over to the point that the experience verges on post-traumatic stress disorder. However, I can’t completely hate the song, possibly because there’s value in a pop culture relic that builds upon an even older pop culture relic, possibly because the song actually has a few neat turns of phrase, like “She knows what it takes to make a pro blush,” which is funny once you realize what it’s talking about. (Answer: whores.)

Today, Spencer sent me a link to the lyrics to a parody version that came out shortly after Kim Carnes’s cover of “Bette Davis Eyes” became a hit: “Marty Feldman Eyes.” Yes, between the respective reigns of Peter Lorre and Steve Buscemi, Feldman was Hollywood’s go-to man with the googly eyes. See?

People would probably most often recognize Feldman as Igor in Young Frankenstein, but he found success in a few other roles, at least to the point that he was famous enough that people would understand what a song titled “Marty Feldman Eyes” was funny.

Her head is growing bald
Her feet are twice her size
She says it’s not her fault
She's got Marty Feldman eyes

She’ll turn the sprinklers on you
And dry you off with her thighs
She'll confuse the hell out of you
She’s got Marty Feldman eyes

And she’ll woo you
Then she’ll moon you
And forget to pull her pants up
She’s obnoxious
And she knows it
And she knows how to blow her nose up
All the boys think she’s fried
She’s got Marty Feldman eyes

She’s ferocious
Narcoleptic
Ambidextrous
Supercalafragalisticexpialadocious
Bogus
Vegamatic
All the boys think she’s a guy
She's got Marty Feldman eyes

And Jimmy Walker’s lips
Liberace’s clothes
Shelly Duvall’s hips
She’s got Willie Nelson legs
And Nancy Reagan’s spleen
Dolly Parton’s lungs
She’s got Leon Spinks’s teeth
Bob Seger’s pancreas
All the boys think she's some kind of guy
She’s got Marty Feldman eyes

So maybe Bruce Baum isn’t for everyone, and even at the time the song came out it wouldn’t have exactly been incisive comedy, but I had a laugh reading the lyrics. But it got me thinking: Why the hell did Marty Feldman’s eyes look like that, anyway? (Answer: whores. Wait, no. Graves’ disease. But whores would have been funnier.) But, as I learned by reading about him, it wasn’t the disease that killed him. No, it’s much more interesting that that.

And here’s where I get to the third part of today’s post: the strange death of Marty Fedlman. I could try to put tin my own words, but there’s really nothing more I could add than what Wikipedia has, so here are the two paragraphs verbatim:

Feldman died from a heart attack in a hotel room in Mexico City on 2 December 1982, during the making of the film Yellowbeard. Cartoonist Sergio Aragonés was filming nearby, and dressed for his role as an armed policeman. Aragonés abruptly encountered Feldman while introducing himself, frightening Feldman, and possibly inducing his heart attack. Aragonés has recounted the story with the punchline “I killed Marty Feldman.” The story was converted into a strip in Aragonés’s issue of DC Comics’ Solo.

On the DVD commentary of Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks cites additional factors that may have contributed to Feldman's death: He smoked sometimes six packs of cigarettes daily, drank copious amounts of coffee, and ate a diet rich in eggs and dairy products. Michael Mileham, who made the behind-the-scenes movie Group Madness about the making of Yellowbeard, said he and Feldman swam to an island where a local was selling lobster and coconuts. Mileham and Feldman used the same knife on their lobsters. Mileham said he got shellfish poisoning the next day, and theorized that since Feldman used the same knife he also could have been poisoned.

Rest in peace, Googly Eyes. Now, the next time I watch Young Frankenstein, I’ll be thinking about that instead of “Why the hell do Marty Feldman’s eyes look like that?”

I Myself Was Once President of Algeria

Lately, Giorgio Moroder has been getting me through my workday and making me feel nostalgic for a time and a place that I never actually knew, at least from first-hand experience.

Previously, I only was only familiar with him as the guy who scored the Cat People remake, and who with David Bowie wrote that movie’s theme song. It’s better known by its subtitle, “Putting Out Fire,” and, at that, it’s know probably best known as Shoshanna’s “battle paint” song from Inglourious Basterds. But Moroder had gotten his little synthetic wonderments into a lot of movies — everything from Neverending Story to Scarface, though that range indicates how much work he is now doing in mainstream movies. Just yesterday I stumbled across the chase theme from Midnight Express, which I didn’t notice sounding like such a dance party when I watched the movie. (Subject matter probably had something to do with it.) Listen for yourself:

True, it sounds like the incongruously upbeat disco tracks from the Italian horror movies I like so much — in particular, it reminds me of the opening theme to Tenebre, which got remade by Justice, which the Midnight Express track sounds like anyway. But the best connection I can make here goes back to The Simpsons and the curious tendency for that show to have taught me about pop-cultural works that I wouldn’t actually experience until much later. In the second “Treehouse of Horror,” the Simpsons travel to Morocco, where Homer is briefly apprehended by Moroccan authorities. The scene, I realize now, parodies Midnight Express, and the synthy soundtrack that appears in that scene is a riff on Moroder’s score. Hear it for yourself, at about 54 seconds in:

That’s totally it. And I basically had all the pieces this whole time, just took this long to put them together.

— “You must pay a fine of two American dollars!”
— “… Okay.”

Ha.

My Name Is Sue and I’m a Singer

Okay, I am mentally ill. There’s no other explanation for what I’m doing to myself.

Against my better judgment, I further investigated the Scottish (and fake Japanese) pop singer Aneka further in hopes of seeing what other weirdness she might have wrought upon the pop fans of the 80s. This search led to the 1982 song “Ooh Shooby Doo Doo Lang.” Yes, I typed that correctly. I found the video on YouTube. I watched it. You can too, but I should warn you now that the song itself represents some sort of bastard child sired by Julie Andrews, UB40 and getting stabbed in the brain.

You were warned.

Seriously. This was a thing.

I don’t think I’m overstepping in announcing that I don’t know what the fuck this is supposed to be. On one hand, the narrative of the song introduces a situation common in the music industry but rarely sung about: the behind-the-scenes person who has a hand in pop hits but who is hidden from the public. I have to take a few issues:

• The background mural appears to feature a man in blackface, in case we didn’t suspect this musical trend of racism already. 
• The background dancers seem weirdly sexualized. 
• Conversely, Aneka is dressed like gangster for no reason I can understand. 
• She’s smiling way too much for someone who is ostensibly bemoaning their lack of fame. 
• Given Aneka’s status as a one-hit wonder, I feel like the lyrics might be overselling her importance to pop music. Did she really work with Stevie Wonder? Does Paul McCartney in fact call her all the time?
• Aneka kind of looks like Princess Di, which is awkward, though I understand it’s nothing she could have foreseen. 
• Aneka also looks like my Aunt Linda (not your problem, I understand). 
• The song samples and shouts out to “Japanese Boy.”
• I don’t know if I’m supposed to read meaning into the scenes gradual shift from monochrome to full color, but all of the interpretations I have for this relate to casual racism.

Please, someone just answer the question “What the fuck?” and I’ll be okay.

It’s Breaking Up a Happy Home

Yesterday, I posted on this blog Nancy Nova’s “Made in Japan” as an example of a bad pop song that more than borders on offensive but in fact dances over that line with costume bucked teeth in place, exclaiming “So solly! So solly!” I’m still not sure what that video was, exactly, but it happened, and we can’t go back in time and prevent it from happening, unfortunately.

Now, however, I’m wondering whether it is actually worse — in terms of quality, in terms of political correctness — than my old standby for fascinatingly bad, offensive 80s pop songs: Aneka’s “Japanese Boy.” The song, which many people seem to recognize today from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, strikes the ears like a flurry of shurikens. But it is also incredibly catchy in a way that often leaves its victims humming it days afterwards, even when they have acknowledged how bad the song is. Even worse: It, like “Made in Japan” is sung by a Caucasian woman — in this case, Scottish mezzo soprano Mary Sandeman. It represents a strange trend in 80s pop music that had singers donning Asian clothes and acting in a manner that Westerners might consider traditionally Asian. Totally offensive, right? Like, on the same level as blackface, and I’d call this trend yellowface if that too didn’t sound totally racist to me. (Geishaface? Does that work?)

Anyway, I’m curious to know if people find “Made in Japan” or “Japanese Boy” more offensive, by whatever standard you chose to gauge offensiveness. Here is the video for “Japanese Boy,” featuring backup dancers that lord almighty I hope are actually Japanese and Sandeman herself, looking sort of like a hard luck Jane Leeves forced on stage because she lost a bet.

So? Which makes you feel worse about things white people have done? Which one makes you most regret having ears? Which one seems catchier, despite everything bad about it?

Respectfully I Say to Thee

The grocery store was truly cranking out the hits tonight, and the disco hit parade included a song I’d never heard before. Not only was it notable for being new, but it also included lyrics I would never have expected to hear in a pop song: “Respectfully I say to thee / I’m aware that you are cheating.” Which is rather a polite way to call someone out for being a lying bastard, no?

Please note the many kinds of crazy going on in the above video.

Turns out the song is “Upside Down,” by Diana Ross, which I find strange because I was under the impression that Ross was a great singer, yet there’s nothing vocally spectacular about this song. Still, the choice of words — especially the thee, given what’s been on my mind lately — seemed remarkable. Overall, the weirdness of the song reminds me of a far less important pop cultural footnote, but it’s also one that I’m happy to post as often as possible: that time Padma Lakshmi sang.

Here’s to all the awkward songs.

Sliced Tomatoes, by Way of Countless High School Dances

Okay, so there’s been a lot of music lately. That’s just where I am. I’ve actually been performing the kind of sit-at-the-desk tasks that require casual distraction, so I’ve been listening to music, jumping on to weird YouTube playlists and seeing where they take me. Tonight, I happened across a fun surf rock-sounding track, The Just Brothers’ 1972 release “Sliced Tomatoes.”

I may not surf and I haven’t been to the beach in months, but I still dig instrumental surf rock. And I thought this was that. And I liked it until the realization hit me: It’s “The Rockefeller Skank.” You know — the Fatboy Slim song from She’s All That and just about every trailer for movies aimed at teenagers between 1998 and 2001? This song was unescapable for a period, and it has once again returned, only in older and less offensive form. The chord progressions in “Sliced Tomatoes” are exactly the same.

I double-checked on Who Sampled Who, that site I used to track down the Alison Moyet laugh, and I’m right: The song was indeed sampled by Fatboy Slim. So it’s not news to the music world, but I was still happy to have excavated this music fossil on my own.

One more random fact about a song you’d probably rather forget: Despite considerable commercial success, Fatboy Slim says he didn’t make any money off it. Instead, Fatboy Slim gave away a quarter of the profits to each of the artists he sampled: The Just Brothers (who are apparently considered an R&B group), Bobby Fuller (“I Fought the Law),” John Barry (“Beat Girl”) and Art of Noise (“Peter Gunn”). Random, that.

Okay, one more: According to Who Sampled Who, that other once-inescapable Fatboy Slim song, “Praise You,” contains a sample from a disco remix of “It’s a Small World” that Disney released back in the age when such things were popular.

She Laughs Again

So remember when I discovered how the laugh from “Situation” ended up in “Macarena”? But I couldn’t locate any of the hundreds of other songs that also use the same sample? The mystery has been solved. Ironically, by posting the piece as I did, with me having given up searching for a list, I arrived at it. I noticed on Google Analytics that someone found my post on the Alison Moyet laugh by searching some terms that I hadn’t thought of, and right there in the second hit was Who Sampled Who, an indisputably awesome database of songs that have been sampled in other songs. So here, then, is a list of songs that use the laughing effect from Yaz’s “Situation.”

A warning: It’s a mixed bag, in the way that a bag mixed with different kinds of shit is still technically a mixed bag. Sad to think that the last post hit the worthwhile samples with Los Del Rios and Samantha Fox. Nonetheless, the laugh can be heard in a not-terrible 1982 Ser & Duff track that’s vaguely Girl Talk-like in its sample craziness. Hear the laugh at the 5:54 mark.

It’s also in Simon Harris’s 1988 track “Bass,” the video for which is at least educational about how weird pop culture got at the cusp of the 90s.

It’s in the 1990 Deee-Lite track “What Is Love?” (and no, it tragically has no relation to the Haddaway song of the same name). Listen for Alison’s laugh about six seconds in.

Some drag queen named Ondina used it in her 1997 song “Summer of Love,” about twelve seconds in. The resulting track sounds remarkably like a spoof song from “Deep House Dish.” I think Bill Hader would play Ondina.

A 1990 atrocity, “Tequila,” by the group Latino Party, features it around 1:47 in. The song sounds like a cross between a jock jam and what an ill-fated Fly Girl would have heard in her head as she fatally overdosed.

And it appears in the 1999 Belgium dance track “Party Time,” which I can only imagine being useful to cults for brainwashing purposes, what with its incessant chanting of “Tonight is party time / It’s party time tonight.”

Though Heidi Montag’s 2009 song-like thing, “Body Language,” steals almost every part of “Situation,” it weirdly omits the laugh. Also, no joke: It’s legitimately the best song on this list. But that could just be the brainmelt talking.

Despite all this I still like “Situation” and don’t blame it for this parade of horrors. And I think the real take-away here is yet even more proof that the easiest way to arrive at hard-to-find information online is to post what you have and let the information find you. Take that, traditional research.

A Juice Box and a Snack

Another report for the streets: Today a car passed by blasting that Khia song “My Neck, My Back.” You know which one I’m talking about — the filthy one. Walking right next to me were some kids with their mom, and they totally heard the chorus. Weirdly, I reacted to the situation with this alien and vaguely parental sense of anger at those kids having been exposed to something inappropriate. Later, in more Drew-like fashion, I tried to think of what a more child-friendly version of that song might be, and the most I could come up with was a revised chorus: “My jump rope, my jacks, a juice box and a snack.” Can anyone with access to a children’s choir flesh out the rest of the song and get this performed publicly? Because YouTube awaits.

That is all.

No, wait. That is not all: The car playing the song was full of guys. Weird, right? Or at least sending a message that was open to interpretation?