#novelty song | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-90s-music-colosseum · 29 days

Text

youtube

Listen to both songs before voting, and define "better" any way you wish!

The music video for Common People uses a shortened version of the song - here's the original if you want to listen to it.

#the 90s song ever #poll #polls #music poll #tournament poll #90s music #they might be giants #tmbg #novelty song #alternative dance #pulp #pulp band #britpop #alternative rock #Youtube

83 notes · View notes

dynamoe · 1 year

Text

The Day the Music Died, Ha-Haaa!

youtube

#Napoleon XIV #novelty record #novelty song #dr demento #they're coming to take me away ha-haaa #Youtube

10 notes · View notes

countesspetofi · 1 year

Text

youtube

Every night when I take my muscle relaxer, I have to sing, “When her muscles start relaxin’, up the hill comes Andrew Jackson.”

#the marx brothers #groucho marx #at the circus #lydia the tattooed lady #novelty song #Youtube

15 notes · View notes

songsforthepierce · 1 year

Text

Odd Tracks: They’re Coming to Take Me Away Ha! Haa!... - Napoleon XIV

So this is a song I haven’t thought about in YEARS. when I was looking through what music I had I saw this and went “...oh yeah, this song.”

I debated about doing this but content warning for light discussions on ableism and institutionalization. I didn’t really expect doing that on this fucking song but here we are.

youtube

So I found this song in a video that was similar to AMV Hell back in...maaaybe 2007 or 2008? Hard to remember. But anyway, I remember buying the song, listening to it from time to time and then just moved on. Now that I came back to this song I realized this only could have been used during the big AMV Hell era of the time. I cannot imagine this being used today. Well I say that when as I am typing this maybe someone will use it in a TikTok or something.

I looked into this song and learned some things. First off is that the artist goes under Napoleon XIV which I know isn’t interesting but to me the only reason that stands out is because when I got it on itunes at the time they label him under “Napoleon’s Ghost”. Why? I don’t know. Moving on from that the artist’s real name is Jerry Samuels and he is from America. Secondly the song was released in 1966 and was a chart hit reaching number 1 on U.S. Cash Box Top 100, number 3 on US Billboard Top 100, number 4 in UK Singles Chart, number 2 on Canada RPM Top Singles, and number 40 on Australia’s Kent Music Report. I am actually surprised it topped that high in the US, Canada, and UK during the time period (find it funny it was lower in Australia though). You know, I can 100% believe this being a one hit wonder. Novelty songs getting that status isn’t new (i.e. Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer). However, this being high within most of the charts is what baffles me. It being number 40? more believable. But it being within the top 4? That is just confusing for me. Was there nothing else going on in 1966 for this to happen? I guess so. Hell, the guy was awarded a gold disc. Well with all of that said what is this song about? What made this such a hit?

The song is about a man, or in this case Napoleon XIV (this was Jerry’s character or something), being taken away to a mental institution. Why? Because his girlfriend broke up with him which is what is causing his insanity. Actually wait, no, it was because he lost his dog. Haha...funny...okay look, I get it is one of those “Oh tee hee look how CRAZY this character is. Oh isn’t it funny they went insane and are being institutionalized! Oh how quirky!” songs which are not uncommon. I am not gonna say it is the worse song or even the worse song about this type of thing. But I will say it did not really age well and it is very much partially a product of the culture. Well I say partially because Samuels did point out he felt like this song would come off like it was making fun of the mentally ill but that him throwing in the line at the end about the dog would somehow make this okay. You know, how wikipedia worded what he said is weirdly better than what he actually said at the time. The whole “Sickies” line is not great. I know I could talk about how a song like this technically makes light about mental illness and institutionalization especially since the abuse that goes on in places as such has gotten more attention over the years. However, I think we all know this and I already stated my general feelings on the song. Plus the guy was 28 at the time which does explain his attitude at the time. Nowadays I actually don’t know what he does and frankly I really don’t care.Though, I would I have ended this all here but I found more info on the song.

The song you may noticed uses snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, and hand clap rhythm throughout. Samuels’ vocals are not sung melodically but instead spoken rhythmically while the pitch of his vocals rises and falls at key points which creates an odd glissando effect. This is increased by the wailing sirens that were added in the song as well. Now this made me look up what a glissando is which is described as “a glide to one pitch to another”. Though what was interesting to me was the fact that Samuels was able to do the vocal pitch shifts by basically doing a variation on what the creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks did. Samuels at the time was working as a record engineer at the time which does explain all the sound stuff he was able to do on the track. A lot of it is talked about in Who Wrote a Book About Love? which I actually recommend reading the parts where he talks about all the technical stuff he did for the song. To be honest how he made the more technical aspects of the song is way more interesting than the song itself. I would have also ended all this here but then I found out this song as sequels.

Okay yeah, this song has sequels which I do not understand. Yes, this was a popular song which got banned by some stations because of the subject matter but were there people who REALLY wanted a sequel to this? Though I guess before I talk about that I should start will saying this song has a B-side. So the B-side is the same song but it is played in reverse. This fucking sounds like a song people would try to make theories about subliminal messages being inserted in. That or something out of a bad creepypasta. The most notable thing about this song is that rock critic, Dave Marsh, in his book Book of Rock Lists said the B-side is the “most obnoxious song ever to appear in a jukebox” which he claims this song cleared out a diner of forty people two minutes flat. I don’t know why but that made me remember that whole What’s New Pussy Cat meme from years back. Anyway, the fact this B-side was on a jukebox in a diner is just baffling to me. Why would someone put that on there unless they really wanted to annoy everyone in the restaurant? I would leave too if that came on. Now that I got the B-side out of the way now I can talk about the multiple sequels. The first one is I'm Happy They Took You Away, Ha-Haaa! and it’s just the same fucking song. The instrumentals sound like a bootleg of the original. The only difference is that this is about the woman happy she sent the guy away. The only notable things about this song was this was recorded Bryna Raeburn of CBS Radio Mystery Theater under Josephine XV. The second sequel is They Took You Away, I'm Glad, I'm Glad which is I guess recorded by Josephine which appeared on These Are the Hits, You Silly Savages by Teddy & Darrel. The video of someone playing it on a promotional CD is all I could really find. I think there was one other video with the song but I guess this wasn’t popular. I am not shocked though because it is just the same song, again. I am not going to count the variation of the original song where Samuels says, “THEY'RE TRYING TO DRIVE ME SANE!!! HA HA“ different at the end as a sequel but I guess I should mention it for completion sake. “Emperor Bob” Hudson made a song called I’m Normal which is about the brother of the main character with the claims that no one will get him because he is so normal. The concept on paper sounded more funny to interesting for me because it just makes me think of all of those “I’m so normal memes”. Sadly when I listened to the song it sucked. How many times are they going to make the same song but slightly alter the tune of the song? Well, I guess they only did this four times because the forth and final sequel was made by Sameuls himself in 1988. All the other sequels were made in 1966, the same year as the original, which kind of makes sense with the fact that would be at the height of the popularity of the original. But 1988 feels like it is late to the party. Anyway, the last sequel is called They're Coming To Get Me Again, Ha Haaa! where Napoleon XIV has been released from institutionalization but alas that doesn’t last long as his fear of going back leads him being taken in. My opinion on all of these songs is lower than the original mainly because they really don’t really do much from the original concept. All of them just sound like bootlegs of one another but not even an enjoyable bootleg.

I was originally going to look into the covers of this song (yes this song had covers) but I just don’t care anymore. I already spent more time on this song than I originally intended. So yeah, this song exists and I won’t be listening to it or any of it’s variants again.

#They're coming to take me away ha haa #Napoleon XIV #one hit wonder #novelty song #music review #song review #odd tracks #long post #ableism tw

18 notes · View notes

in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine · 8 months

Text