Thanksgiving is over, and most of us in the U.S. have had our fill of turkey leftovers fixed in various ways – but there is one more set of turkeys to swallow. The annual list of Top Ten Turkeys. As compiled by KFOG, a Bay Area radio station, on their popular 10@10 morning program. A KFOG turkey is a song that is truly stupid, you know better and yet you actually think it’s a good song. Despite your best efforts, you end up humming it in the car. Generally the instrumentation is decent, but the lyrics are a problem. Here is this year’s set:
1. Boys Don’t Cry – I Wanna Be A Cowboy
2. Clarence “Frogman” Henry – Ain’t Got No Home
3. The Vapors – Turning Japanese
4. Baltimora – Tarzan Boy (voted best of set)
5. Trashmen – Surfin’ Bird
6. Blue Swede – Hooked On A Feeling
7. They Might Be Giants – Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
8. The Monkees – Gonna Buy Me A Dog
9. Chumbawamba – Tubthumping
10. Toni Basil – MickeyBONUS TRACK: The B-52’s – Rock Lobster
The best turkey of the set was decided by vote from Fogheads (yes, they really use that term) who email or blog in their vote. The Monkees Gonna Buy Me a Dog gets my vote for best turkey of the set. I must admit that it has always made me laugh, and for some incomprehensible reason I actually like it, even though I know I shouldn’t.
The Blue Swede, Vapors and Toni Basil (I truly despise this one) tunes are repeats from last year’s turkey set list, prompting me to wonder about the depth of KFOG’s collection. I am sure CV readers can nominate many more turkeys, so perhaps we should help KFOG out next year!
N.B.: OK, I know, I know. I’m late with this post. Thanksgiving is over and done. But over the holiday, I had a house full of relatives, did all the cooking, and broke out in hives, so you gotta gimme me a break here.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:20 am
What a nice, light-hearted post! Thanks!
November 27th, 2006 at 4:59 am
Oh, I wouldn’t have put They might be giants up there. I think “Istanbul” is a great song! And this crowd here will probably also appreciate their “Why does the sun shine?” Here are the lyrics:
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
The sun is hot, the sun is not
A place where we could live
But here on Earth there’d be no life
Without the light it gives
We need its light, we need its heat
The sun light that we seek
The sun light comes from our own sun’s
Atomic energy
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
The sun is hot…
The sun is so hot that everything on it is a gas
Aluminum, Copper, Iron, and many others
The sun is large…
If the sun were hollow, a million Earth’s would fit inside
And yet, it is only a middle size star
The sun is far away…
About 93,000,000 miles away
And that’s why it looks so small
But even when it’s out of sight
The sun shines night and day
We need its heat, we need its light
The sun light that we seek
The sun light comes from our own sun’s
Atomic energy
Scientists have found that the sun is a huge atom smashing machine
The heat and light of the sun are caused by nuclear reactions between
Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Carbon, and Helium
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
November 27th, 2006 at 6:43 am
Cavalcade of Turkeys
A KFOG turkey is a song that is truly stupid, you know better and yet you actually think it’s a good song. Despite your best efforts, you end up humming it in the car. Generally the instrumentation is decent, but the lyrics are a problem. Here is this
November 27th, 2006 at 9:55 am
Yeah, I’m with PK on this one. On my aesthetic scale (which is obviously in accord with the true scale of the Cosmos) “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” is a straight-up good song. I am deeply surprised that anything by They Might Be Giants gets on this list while, say, Styx’s “Mr. Roboto” or Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” and “Lollipop” get left off. Scandalous.
November 27th, 2006 at 9:57 am
Clarence Henry was a great New Orleans pianist and singer. It is a shame that people just remember him for this one song (which, by the way, I kind of like…) A lot of performers from that era would have a novelty song in their repertoire that built on a particular “hook”, in Henry’s case his characteristic croak.
November 27th, 2006 at 10:28 am
I’m with Blake and PK on being pro They Might Be Giants. Besides, just because a song is a bit silly, lyrically, doesn’t make it a turkey, especially if the silliness is deliberate. And hey, some of the tunes are quite catchy. “Tubthumping” was a favorite among the guys in my jujitsu dojo (we got knocked down and had to get back up again a LOT, even if it wasn’t due to excessive drinking).
And is Toni Basil’s “Mickey” the one that has the lines “Oh Mickey, you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind”? If so, that’s not a turkey either. It was an anthem from my youth.
Among the many tunes missing would be things like “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” by Dead or Alive — truly one of the most inane and turkey-worthy tunes ever written. I’m sure there’s more, but it’s early and I haven’t had any caffeine as yet….
November 27th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Do They Know It’s Christmas by Band Aid.
The part where they sing, “Tonight thank god it’s them, instead of you,” always cracks me up. Oh, and “there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime.”
Still, I sing to it in the car.
November 27th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Does Rhapsody in Blue count? After spending too many hours in Terminal One at O’Hare, I can’t so much as see a United aircraft without that tune lodging itself in my brain.
November 27th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
hey just because they are too dense to get the deep philosophical meaning of “Surfin Bird” is no reason to trash the song
November 27th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
I second Elliot’s opinion on the Trashmen’s “Surfin Bird”, as I desperately load Chumbawamba – Tubthumping CD into the drive. ” I thought that music matters but does it – bollocks!”. Well I guess that Chumbawamba have just about summed it up.
November 27th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
echoing warm fuzzies for istanbul (not constantinople). that song makes perfect logical sense, and all of the words are true. if you’ve a date in constantinople, she *will* be waiting in istanbul.
how did kfog ever miss *i know what boys like,* by the freaking *waitresses*?
November 28th, 2006 at 12:40 am
TMBG didn’t even write Istanbul (I discovered this when my mom heard me playing the song – and mentioned that she remembered it from the 50’s). And it makes perfect sense compared to some of their other songs (Particle Man? Not a turkey, but joyously nonsensical).
As for turkeys… perhaps Da Funk by Daft Punk. But really, it seems all electronica-club-house music is repetitive. I suppose it’s more interesting on E.
November 28th, 2006 at 11:27 am
The tune for “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” comes originally from “Puttin’ on the Ritz” (1929) by Irving Berlin, except for the “Even old New York, was once New Amsterdam” part, whose melody is that old snake-charmer song sometimes known as “The Streets of Cairo”. With lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy and music by Nat Simon, “Istanbul” peaked at #10 on the 1953 Billboard charts, performed by The Four Lads.
November 28th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Dang I was just going to post that. Many people seem to not know that, even though I think the original song was in Mona Lisa’s Smile. (Pretty sure.)
November 28th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Don’t dis the Waitresses!
My local radio station has started playing “Schnappi, Das Kleine Krokodil” every Tuesday morning, perfectly timed so it’s playing when I drive my kids to school. Try getting that out of your head, or worse, getting it out of the head of an eight-year-old who is supposed to be settling down for class!
November 28th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
PK,
The original version of “Why does the sun shine?” was done by Tom Glazer on an album titled “Space Songs.” You can hear the original at:
http://www.acme.com/jef/singing_science/
November 28th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
Hi Travis,
Thanks for that link, there are many other cool songs there too!
November 28th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Turning Japanese is the second best song about masturbation ever written, The Who’s Pictures of Lily being tops, of course.
Stupid Fogheads.
November 29th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
How can there not be any contributions from the various pop industry megastars on these sorts of lists?? Pretty much anything pushed out of Jive records qualifies, as does most of Def Jam and DeathRow. It if is in rotation on the various versions of MTV, VH, CMT, etc., then it most likely is a classic turkey.
November 30th, 2006 at 2:28 am
I gotta agree with JoAnne about “Gonna Buy Me a Dog.” I can’t count the number of times I rewound it on tape, trying to catch every last syllable.
“I thinkI’mgonnabuymeadog, yes sir, I’m gonna buy me a dog, if IwaslookinforawordtodescribewhatI’mgonnabuy, I think DOG would be the word.” “Would it be dog?” “It would be dog.” “Definitely dog.” “It would come springing from my lips. Dog.”
Good times!
November 30th, 2006 at 6:10 am
Two of my favorite turkeys are:
“Young and Dumb” by the Rubber City Rebels(who also have “I wanna pierce my brain”;
“Kung Foo Fighting” by Busstop.