silly song titles

I don’t listen to modern pop music, so I don’t know if the trend has continued, but in the late 1950s and 1960s, it was quite common for songs to have titles that were completely meaningless. Here is what I came up with after a few moments of thought:

• Be-Bop-A-Lula by Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps (1956)
• Rama Lama Ding Dong by the Edsels (1958)
• Papa Oom Mow Mow by the Rivingtons (1962)
• Da Doo Ron Ron by the Crystals (1963)
• Doo Wah Diddy Diddy by the Exciters (1963)
• Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um by Major Lance (1963)
• Ring Dang Doo by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs (1965)
• Sha La La La Lee by the Small Faces (1966)
• Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da by the Beatles (1968)
• In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly (1968)
• Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by Middle of the Road (1971)

And if you think that these titles are silly, then I must warn you that things are about to become a lot sillier. One of my favourite radio programs is the self-styled ‘antidote to panel games’, BBC Radio 4’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, which has been running since 1972. An idea of the anarchic humour of this program can be gleaned from the program announcer’s closing credits, which suggests that the panellists ‘were given silly things to do’.

These include singing one song to the tune of another (e.g., Chuck Berry’s My Ding-a-Ling to the tune of Charles Aznavour’s She); Uxbridge English Dictionary, in which the panellists are asked to suggest new definitions for old words (e.g., randomize—a squint); and a series of games in which the teams are asked to suggest books, songs or movies that would appeal to a specific social group, such as accountants or farmers.

In the spirit of the last game, I would like to suggest a few ‘well-known’ songs that might appeal to an audience of fish:

• Shark, Rattle and Roll by Big Joe Tuna (1954)
• Theme for a Bream by Cliff Pilchard (1961)
• Twist and Trout by the Isley Brothers (1961)
• Cod Only Knows by the Beach Boys (1966)
• A Plaice in the Sun by Stevie Wonder (1967)
• Mullet of Kintyre by Wings (1977)
• Sprat Trap by the Boomtown Sprats (1978)

For an older audience, possible contributions might include Heart and Sole by Hoagy Carmichael and Salmon Chanted Evening by Rodgers and Hammerstein. However, I’ve not suggested Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica, which is a genuine title, or anything by Country Joe and the Fish, which was a real band.

I accept full responsibility for the awfulness of these examples, although you should bear in mind the origins of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again, which featured two of the later show’s regular panellists and John ‘Otto’ Cleese, later a stalwart of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, was a 1960s BBC radio comedy whose stock-in-trade was the excruciatingly dreadful pun—you often heard the studio audience groaning in unison as yet another was delivered.

With this in mind, can you suggest other ‘fishy’ song titles? All your contributions will be published, regardless of how awful and contrived they are. The possibility that they are even more terrible than mine is fairly remote.