Something Old, Nothing New

Something Old, Nothing New : "Things That Suck: '50s Novelty Songs"

Maybe because I was a kid in the 1950s, I didn't think those songs sucked. In fact, "If I'd Known You Were Coming, I'd've Baked a Cake" was one of my favorites. I even liked "Mambo Italiano." I probably never even thought of it as a "novelty song." That designation was reserved (by me) for things that came along later, like Buchanan and Goodman's "Flying Saucer Parts 1 and 2," "The Witch Doctor," and "Purple People Eater," all of which I also liked, though I was older and probably should have known better. Anyway, it turns out that I liked a lot of songs that Bob Merrill wrote, and I still do. I didn't know about his suicide, and learning about it four or five months after the fact still makes me sad.