Today is my dad’s birthday, and as I recently warned, this is going to be an unusual MotD. Were he still alive, he’d be 92 today. I’ve already written about Dad a fair bit and don’t want to repeat that, so I’ll focus more on his musical tastes today. They were a little off-kilter.
That usually wasn’t detectable from what he listened to on the radio. He always had it set to the variety AM station out of Dayton, Ohio, but unlike me, Dad didn’t seem to pay close attention to the music. It was mostly morning background noise while he read the paper and caffeinated himself. He rarely used the hi-fi to play music; when he did, it was often country or country-adjacent music: Roger Miller;1 Glen Campbell; Jerry Reed; Tennessee Ernie Ford; Buck Owens; and Roy Clark come to mind.2
The primary deviation came when he’d go through his 45s and choose a comedy tune to play. Dad seemed to have loads of those wacky songs; I don’t think I ever learned why he enjoyed them so much. I remember when Ray Stevens’ “The Streak” became a big hit in 1974—for my classmates, it was a new and unusual type of song; for me, it was just the latest to be added to my dad’s collection. He was a big Ray Stevens fan.
Today’s MotD came out before I was born; it was a number-one hit from a band that didn’t really exist and never made a full album.
This song came to mind as an appropriate way to celebrate Dad because I remember him using the phrase “alley oop” sometimes. Not having heard it in decades, I forgot how silly it is (the Wikipedia article linked above shines a little light on the weird enunciation).
Cracking open the door to these memories has been a mixed blessing for me: it’s weirdly amusing to try to run down bits of lyrics in hopes of rediscovering even older comedy songs than “Alley Oop,” and I enjoy remembering Dad’s pleasure in listening to them and sharing them with his kids; but even back then, I could tell my parents’ marriage wasn’t happy,3 and that pained me deeply.
So don’t worry: music like this won’t become a prominent feature here, even on future anniversaries of my dad’s birth. It’s been a very pleasant distraction from more weighty matters to sift through my memories of my beloved Pops4 the past few weeks, and listen to some of the music he shared with me all those years ago.
An underrated, talented songwriter. Anyone else remember him voicing Alan-a-Dale, the rooster-narrator of Disney’s Robin Hood movie?
Yeah, he watched Hee Haw regularly too, which meant we all did
I’m pretty sure Mom didn’t like any of his comedy music
I don’t remember why I started calling him this sometime in my 30s, but it amused him, so it stuck
"There's a man in the funny papers we all know..../He lives way back a long time ago." Alley Oop had been there for a couple of decades (via creator V.T. Hamlin) by the time the song hit in 1960.
(The Hollywood Argyles had the #1 hit, but the equally contrived Dante and the Evergreens also had a hit with that year.)
And yes, Roger Miller was amazing...
This song, Alley Oop, my god, I haven’t heard this since I was a kid! This track appeared on a record in my parents’ collection. Coincidentally, I also started calling my dad Pops at some point (late teens, early 20s maybe). There was precedent in my family as both my parents (and my mom’s siblings) called my maternal grandfather Pops. Not sure when I started doing it, but he’s been Pops to me for at least 30 years now.