Songs in the key of cringe
QUESTION
Are there any song titles worse than the Statler Brothers’ You Can’t Have Your Kate And Edith Too? The music genre with the most outrageous titles is Country and Western. If there’s a pun to be made, or a double meaning to be found, them good ol’ boys can mix the risque and wry with the best of them.
Country music has a limited palette and hard drinkin’ and adultery are its primary colours. It isn’t always PC (politically correct) but it’s always PC (pure country).
It’s not rare for country songwriters to exploit existing phrases. Comic Groucho Marx made the wisecrack ‘If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me’ and the Bellamy Brothers turned it into a two-million-selling chart hit.
‘I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy’ is credited to humourists Dorothy Parker or W.C. Fields, but was turned into a country song by Randy hanzlick MD (aka Dr Rock).
And there’s the curious case of Get Your Tongue Outta My Mouth ’Cause I’m Kissing You Goodbye — the winning title in a radio competition devised by DJ Larry (Superjock) Lujack on WLS Chicago when he invited listeners to invent the worst-ever Country and Western song title.
It was sent in without copyright and several artists (including Ray Stevens, Waylon Jennings John Denver and film star Jeff Daniels) ‘borrowed’ the title to write their own lyrics and chords to it.
There are as many corny Country titles as there are corny Country singers queuing up to record them. here’s the Top Ten of the best of the worst: 1 I Don’t Know Whether To Kill Myself Or
Go Bowling. 2 Mama Get The Hammer, There’s A Fly
On Papa’s Head. 3 My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend,
And I Sure Do Miss Him. 4 If I Had A Nose Full Of Nickels, I’d
Sneeze Them All Atchoo. 5 You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly. 6 Did I Shave My Legs For This? 7 I Ain’t Never Been To Bed With An Ugly
Woman, But I Sure Woke Up With A Few. 8 They May Put Me In Prison, But They
Can’t Stop My Face From Breakin’ Out. 9 I’m Gonna Put A Bar In My Car And
Drive Myself To Drink. 10 At Least I’ve Learned To Stand On My Own Two Knees.
David Morgan, Laleham, Surrey. AMeRICAn Country and Western music is well supplied with risible song-titles. Two of my favourites are Drop-kick Me, Jesus, Through The Goalposts Of Life, by Bobby Bare, and You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly, by Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty. T. Phillips, London E10. hOW about Jimmy Buffett song My head hurts, My Feet Stink And I Don’t Love Jesus? T. Bailey, Nottingham.
QUESTION
Where does the phrase ‘Speak of the devil’ come from? We TenD to use ‘Speak of the devil’ light-heartedly as an acknowledgement of someone arriving on the scene just as or after they were being discussed.
Other languages have different proverbs for such a situation — in hebrew, for example, it’s ‘Talking about the donkey’ and in Mandarin it’s ‘Speak of Cao Cao and Cao Cao arrives’ — but the current english phrase is an abbreviation of the older ‘Speak of the devil and he doth appear’ (or its alternative ‘Speak of the devil and he’ll be at your elbow’).
Its first printed use in Modern english can be found in Giovanni Torriano’s Piazza Universale (1666), as ‘The english say, Talk of the devil, and he’s presently at your elbow’ but it also appears in various Old english and Latin texts, tracing the phrase to medieval england — potentially as far back as the 5th century.
The expression originated with the belief that one should not mention the devil’s name for fear of attracting his attention; a deep Christian superstition of evil in general, which is probably why variations from other Christian counties also use these words, such as the old German counterpart ‘Call/name the devil and he comes running’ and the Finnish ‘evil is where it’s mentioned’.
Considering there are also european variants that don’t refer to wickedness, but instead mention wolves — as in French, ‘When one speaks of the wolf (one sees its tail)’ and Croatian, ‘Speak of the wolf, and he will stand just outside the door’ — it’s also possible that in english, ‘Devil’ was originally ‘wolf’, once a serious threat in the days when wolves were indigenous to england.
After edward I (reigning 1272-1307) ordered the extermination of all wolves however, they became less a threat throughout the British Isles (and finally extinct by the time of henry VII in 1485) and another threat had to be found for this saying — so the devil stepped in. Emilie Lamplough, Trowbridge, Wilts.
QUESTION
In a theatrical programme for a wartime show staged by codebreaking staff at Bletchley Park, the name Bryn NewtonJohn is clearly seen. Was he related to Olivia Newton-John? I DISAGRee with the earlier answer about Brinley (Bryn) newton-John’s headship at Cambridgeshire high School for Boys.
I was at the school for four years under the previous head, Arthur Brinley Mayne, who was indeed a feared tartar who treated both the boys and, as I learned later, the staff, very badly.
When Mr newton-John took over in 1946, [two years before his daughter Olivia was born] it was like a breath of fresh air enter-ing the school and I noticed a tremendous improvement in the atmosphere.
I was at the school a further five years and in all my dealings with him he was a real gentleman. On my first school report, he used a rubber stamp for his signature and managed to get it upside down, but after that the signature was in his own handwriting. his final report on me was complimentary and gave me his best wishes for the future.
My ambition at the time was to become head of geography in a boys’ grammar school and I was lucky enough to achieve that position at Bancroft’s School, Woodford, in 1960, after just three years at Bedford Modern School.
After another ten years in direct grant schools, I changed to comprehensive schools and was appointed head of Waltham Toll Bar School in 1974, just outside Grimsby. I was very conscious of the contrasting effects of Messrs Mayne and newton-John and it was the latter that I subsequently tried to emulate.
Ken Drake, Cambridge. ÷ Is there a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB. You can also fax them to 0141 331 4739 or you can e-mail them to charles. legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.