by Peter Berryman
Wella Wella Bing Bang
In a wee Super 8 motel conference room, after playing a neat little festival in Evart, Michigan, a few weeks ago, my musical partner Lou and I huddled with a gaggle of old folksters like us to debrief. Tom Paxton was there and he and I found ourselves talking about songs that don't make sense. He admitted that parts of some of his OWN songs don't even make sense, to him anyway, and some of mine don't make sense to me, either. We agreed that although sometimes a song that doesn't make sense can be a good song, writing a senseless song on purpose doesn't necessarily contribute to the likelihood of its being good.
A few weeks later at the Hiawatha Festival in Marquette MI, Joel Mabus told me that people were complaining they couldn't prounounce the title of his latest CD. An amazing collection of his blues and ragtime guitar pieces, it's called Thumb Thump. Turns out that's a tongue twister for many folks, hard to say clearly and even harder to hear properly. This reminded me of one of our songs, which ends with a sentence that is apparently difficult to hear correctly. Called The Lightbulb Hat, the end of the chorus goes: "He found it in the mail! How about that! Give me the address to get a lightbulb hat." Not a showstopper, however we didn't think it would be hard to decipher. But we can't seem to sing it without folks later requesting clarification of that last line.
So thinking about Joel's title problem and Tom's lyric observation, I found myself wondering about various ways in which songs can not make sense.
In the most literally senseless songs, lyrics are made up of just sounds, not common words. Songs in an unfamiliar language (For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne; We'll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne) and scat-singing fall into this category. It would also cover those goofball choruses, in both folk (Wid yer too-rye-aa, fol-the-diddle-aa, too-rye-oo-rye-oo-rye-aa) [Mrs. McGrath, trad.] and popular music (oo ee oo ah ah, ting tang wella wella bing bang) [Witchdoctor, by David Seville and the Chipmunks], (Gonna get some raggits, gonna get some rolls, an' some razinrymers heh heh heh...) [Hikki-Burr, theme song for the Bill Cosby Show].
In another brand of senselessness, songs can contain words that are easily misunderstood. The entire song Mairzy Doats (for "mares eat oats") [1943, music by Jerry Livingston, words trad] is a great example of this type, as it was written to be misunderstood on purpose. Inadvertently misunderstood lyrics have come to be called mondegreens, named after a particular example: In the traditional Scottish ballad The Bonny Earl of Murray, writer Sylvia Wright thought it went "They hae slay the Earl of Murray, And Lady Mondegreen," when in fact it was "...and laid him on the green." She coined the term "mondegreen" for this sort of mishearing. Lou always thought, in Winter Wonderland [Bernard & Smith, ©1934], they were saying "In the meadow we can build a snowman, and pretend that he is parched and brown (Parson Brown)..."
Songs with insider references can be senseless to outsiders. Sailors of yore would easily understand the references of "She was round in the counter & bluff in the bow, to me way, aye, blow the man down, So I took in all sail & cried 'Way enough now,' to me way, aye, blow the man down..." [Blow The Man Down, trad.]
I assume Australians can make sense of "And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag..." [Waltzing Matilda by A.B. Paterson, @1936]
And cotton mill workers would not be confused by "Place
a knotter in my hand, So i can spool in the promised land..."
[The Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, by the prolific "Anonymous,"
1920s]
Then there are just plain baffling lyrics from some unknown reality:
I wish I was a mole in the ground (x2)
If I was a mole in the ground,
I'd root that mountain down.
And I wish I was a mole in the ground.
I wish I was a lizard in the spring (x2).
If I's a lizard in the spring
I'd hear my darling sing,
And I wish I was a lizard in the spring --[Mole In The
Ground by Bascom Lamar Lunsford]
In the most common senseless song -- the nonsense song -- phrases or sentences can be properly understood, but are purposely unreal.
Far and few, far and few
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue
And they went to sea in a Sieve. --[The Jumblies by
Edward Lear]
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row --[Desolation Row by Bob Dylan ©1965]
So songs can achieve senselessness by mistake or happenstance,
such as being turned into gibberish by the caprice of the folk
process, or can be written to make no sense on purpose. Whether
they make sense or not does not in itself make them good or bad
songs, or necessarily memorable or forgettable songs. Who knows
why Kum Bye Yah has been around a long time, not to mention
Inka Dinka Do, or why Namyrreb Retep faded into
obscurity. But whatever the outcome, sometimes it's more fun to
make lunch than to make sense.
Composed of sand was that favored land
And trimmed with cinnamon straws
And pink & blue was the pleasing hue
Of the ticke-toe teaser's claws
We sat on the edge of a sandy ledge
And shot at the whistling bee-ee-ee
While the rugabug bats wore waterproof hats
As they dipped in the shining sea. --[A Capital Ship,
by Charles Carryl]