Three Wheels on my Wagon

So was lucky enough to get to push the pram to the park the other day. Nice modern bit of kit a three wheeled affair, obviously these smaller compact models don’t have the comfort suspension and bounce of the old silver cross but by golly do they win out on manoeuvrability.

So in my usual, there’s a song for everything and every occasion, I started singing Three Wheels on my Wagon, and then set myself the task of trying to remember as many of the those nonsense novelty songs as I could.

I’m no social historian but as a small child growing up in a seaside town I remember the Variety Bills, at the local theatre, that still very much echoed the Old Time Music Hall, a staple of which was the novelty song.

Who could forget “Brown Boots” a social commentary about the etiquette of going to a funeral in brown boots and then the reveal that he was in fact the better person because had given his black ones away, many of those comedic songs had a bit of a moral to them. “My Word! You do look Queer” was all about a bloke who had been ill and feeling worse and worse as people told him he looked queer (unwell) until someone came along with a bit of positive reinforcement told him he looked great and then he felt marvellous, a bit of basic psychology for the masses.

However I was wracking my brains for some of the other nonsense novelty songs that emerged every so often throughout  the late 50’s to the early 80’s and I’ll probably be thinking of this for days now, until I’ve got a longer list!

·         Three Wheels on my Wagon                         New Christy Minstrels

·         Oldest swinger in town                                Fred Wedlock

·         Funky Moped                                             Jasper Carrott

·         Beep Beep The Bubble Car Song                   The Playmates

Of course there were also the send up songs like "Tiptoe through the Tulips" by Tiny Tim, Hilda Baker and Arthur Mullard doing “Grease”, and who could forget Pete Sellars  doing the Beatles “A Hard Day's Night” in the style of Laurence Olivier's interpretation of Richard III.

It’s no wonder I can’t remember what I had for breakfast my head’s crammed full of nonsense lyrics!