Don't come around here no more...

My personal favorite take on Alice in Wonderland... down the rabbit hole.  But then, I love cake. 

Rabbit hole #1

Songs about food... or at least referring to it

"Eat it," the song says, "you'll grow up like Bruce Jenner!"  Wait... what?  Here's that great little diddy, "Spam," by Save Ferris.

No Doubt- "A little something refreshing"

Prince & The Muppets- "Starfish and coffee"

Ren & Stimpy- Powdered Toast Man

Rent (movie) - "La Vie Boheme"

Oliver (The Musical)- "Food, glorious food"

Pink Floyd- "Just another brick in the wall"

Sammy Davis Jr.- "The Candy Man" 

Willy Wonka & The Choclate Factory- "A World of Pure Imagination"

Anna Chiara- "Pizza"

Dean Martin- "That's Amore'"

Sons of the Pinoeers- "Cool Water"

?- "Peanut Butter Jelly Time"

Eddie Murphy- "The Ice Cream" 

Weird Al Yankovic- "Eat it"

Weird Al Yankovic- "Fat" 

Puddles Pity Party- The big clown with the golden voice

Like a whole bunch of people, this is where I first heard of Puddles Pity Party.  Puddles is this really tall guy dressed as a clown, who comes out, doesn't speak at first, the then surprises the whole audience.  Yes, dressing as a clown is weird for a singer, but it works for him.  The guy's voice is a amazing, and he's done some really cool song covers and mash-up over the years.  So here's few of my favorites.

"Chandelier" -full song  -Sia

"Under Pressure/Let it Go" mash-up Queen/David Bowie and Disney/Idina Menzel

"Come Sail Away/Let it Go" mash-up Styx and Disney/Idinia Menzel

"Telephone Line/ Hello" mash-up- ELO/Elecitric Light Orchestra and Adele

"Stairway to Gilligan's Island" - Led Zeppelin and Gilligan's Island theme mash-up

"Folsom Prison Blues/Pinball Wizard" - Johnny Cash and The Who mash-up

"Everybody Hurts" - R.E.M.  

"House of the Rising Sun" - Animals

"Bridge Over Troubled Waters" - Simon & Garfunkel

"Hallelujah" - Leonard Cohen

"The Sound of Silence" - Simon & Garfunkel

"Hurt" - Nine Inch Nails

Songs about fucking...

1980's New Wave band Berlin with "Sex (I'm a...)"  OK, you guys are adults now (mostly), and I'm no ttrying to be weird or pervy with this post, but I figured you guys would at least check the post out with this title.  None of these songs are really dirty, to be honest.  When I came up with this idea, I was surprised how many different types of songs there were.  But sex is a major theme in the arts, and in music.  Not as big a love, but still a major theme.  So here's a few songs about this classic topic that you may not have heard of.  

Meatloaf- "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights"- Meatloaf was one of a kind, and he sang epic songs written by this guy named Jim Steinman.  This has to be one of the greatest songs about hooking up ever.  

Salt N Pepa- "Push it"  - One of the first big female rap groups in the 80's, Salt N Pepa had  big hit with this one. 

AC/DC- "Whole Lotta Rosie"- One of the great hard rock bands coming out of the 1970's, and continuing on, AC/DC set the bar for hard rock bands.  This song is about a voluptuous woman names Rosie.  

Cher- "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves"- One of her first big hits from the early 1970's, Cher performs the song on The Sonny & Cher Show, where she was known for her skimpy outfits, which riled up a lot of people in the 1970's.  

Cyndi Lauper- "She Bop"- 1980's pop star Cyndi Lauper with a song letting us know that "she bops," and so does everyone else.  She was best known for the song "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," but now she's best know for psoriasis commercials.   

The Cure- "Just Like Heaven"- From one of the original Goth/Emo bands from the 1980's, The Cure makes the list with the first verse of this song.  

The Buzzcocks- "Orgasm Addict"- Late 1970's/early 80's punk band with a humorous take on sex

Primus- "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver"- Technically not about having sex, but close enough.  So one night your mom called me up when she was in college, and said, "You have ot hear this funny song..."  But allmy friends and and me were punkers, and a couple of them were Primus fans, so I'd heard of the song already.  But your mom thought this was hilarious when she first heard it.  And it is.  

The Offspring- "Session"- This is a great 90's punk band out of Huntington Beach.  I saw these guys play a bar once before the broke bigtime, and had beers with them.  They are still around, I'm sure you've heard of them at some point.  

Sublime- "Date Rape"- A really good song about something really bad.  But in the song she gets revenge.  

Joan Osborne- "Right Hand Man"- She was a female singer for Dead & Company (The Grateful Dead after Jerry Garcia died), before finding mainstream success with her blues inspired songs in 1995.  Relish is a great album, I'd check it out if I were you.  

Veruca Salt- "Can't Fight the Seether"- This band hit big as a 90's alternative band, with this song, and a couple others.  In case you didn't know, Veruca Salt is named after a character in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  If this song doesn't make sense, women have a "seether" and guys don't.  OK, 'nuff said.  

Dolly Parton- "Little Bitty Pissant Country Place"- This song is about a whorehouse.  But "there's nothin' dirty goin' on."  Or so they say.  This is from the musical play and then movie, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Starland Vocal Band- "Afternoon Delight"- more 1970's country lovin'.  This used ot play all the time on the country stations grandma listened to when your mom and I were kids.  

ZZ Top- "Tube Steak Boogie"- This is a great blues rock band that was huge in the 1980's, the title pretty much somes it up.  If you ever want to see any of these bands live in this post, this is the one.  I missed them when they came through Boise, but my friends said it was an epic show.  

Kerry Getz- "45"- One of my favorite musicians in Southern California, Kerry Getz wrote this song about the old 45 records we used to play.  Officially, it's about records, but it's not really about records.  

Bad Brad Prowley sings Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On" at the Apollo- This grungy guy is a homeless karaoke singer who travels around and sing for tips on the street.  The Apollo is a legendary black music venue in Harlem, New York City.  The Apollo loves great singers and musicians, and they will go off on bad ones.  Bad Brad doesn't look the part when he walks in, but he brings the goods when he start singing.  

Elle King- "X's and Oh's"- This is a great song fromyour era, a few years ago.  She was kind of a one hit wonder, but this is a really great song.  Then she has this song, which doesn't leave anything to the imagination.  Before Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, there was Elle King.

Tank Girl movie- "Let's Fall in Love"- From one of my favorite movies, Tank Girl, this scene pays tribute to old time Hollywood movies with their big dance scenes in the 1940's, but in a punk rock way.  On the actual soundtrack, Joan Jett and Paul Westerberg sing this song.  

Queen- "Get Down, Make Love"- From one of the best bands from the 1970's and 1980's, this song gets down to it (pun intended).  

Queen- "Fat Bottomed Girls"- This is just a great fucking song from Queen.  Again, pun intended.  "Get on your bikes and RIDE!"  Oddly, their only dirty video was for the song "Bicycle Race."  Queen was weird, but awesome.  And yes, they are the band that sings "Bohemian Rhapsody."  

Where did this horrible blog title come from?  This. 

So there's a bunch of songs that you haven't heard of about that thing you're supposed to pretend never happens when you go to church.  I wasn't sure you guys were even checking out these posts, so I wondered, "what post could I do that they would definitely take a look at?"  Maybe you found a cool or funny song you didn't know existed.  That's kind of the point of this blog.  

This video blew my mind... "Hi Ren" by Ren

An old BMX friend from England, Alex, shared this yesterday, and it blew my fucking mind.  That's all I'm going to say.  

A therapist watching this video for the first time and sharing her thoughts

Ren X Chinchilla- "How to be me" (live)

Ren- "The Tale of Jenny and Screech" full

"Tainted Love"- the evolution of a great song

Marilyn Manson's Goth gangsta take on the song "Tainted Love," which was on the soundtrack of Not Another Teen Movie, form 2001.  You've probably seen this video at some point, though the movie came out when Katherine was 2 and before Ethan was born.  The thing about really great songs that sometimes get covered well by other bands.  But the version we hear first  is the one that always seems to be the "real version," to us.  

This is the video for this song that you two are probably most familiar with.  "Tainted Love" is about a dysfunctional relatioship, which made it perfect for fan videos using video of Harley Quinn and The Joker from Suicide Squad.  It's still the Marilyn Manson version of the song, but with different visuals.  I think there are two or three Harley and Joker fan videos for this, and they're all great visuals for this version of the song.  But this song goes back much, much further.  

On the totally other side of the music spectrum, here's a stripped down version of "Tainted Love" by rockabilly singer Imelda May.  Same song, but just a woman with a great voice and a guitar.  The song has a completely different feel to it.  This is from around 2010, I think.

Here's yet another completely different take, my favorite punk band, Social Distortion with a fast, hard driving version of "Tainted Love."   I think this cover is from the 1990's. further back in the history of this song.  If this version sounds familiar Katherine, it's because I put it as a bonus track on the end of one of your cheerleader DVD's back in about 2009 or so.  If the DVD played to the end, then a little bit farther, this song came on.  I don't know if you or any of your friends found it, I was just having a little fun, because that's when I discovered this version of it.  

This is the version of "Tainted Love" that people from Generation X, like your parents and me, think is the original version.  The New Wave band Soft Cell did this New Wave version way back in the olden days of 1981.  New Wave was this type of music that actually spawned from the original 1970's punk rock, but used a lot of electronic keyboards, synthesizers, and drum machines, and and was a huge form of pop music at the time.  This came out right before I started high school, and your mom was still in grade school.  This was a huge hit for Soft Cell, and a huge dance song back then, so every high school dance, this song was played.  Soft Cell was a one hit wonder band, with this being their only hit song.  

My whole life, I thought that Soft Cell actually wrote "Tainted Love."  It wasn't until I did the little art show at Earshot Music shop, in Winston-Salem, in 2017 that I learned that the original version of "Tainted Love" was done by Gloria Jones way back in 1962.  So it was really kind of an R & B/Motown type song back then.  Phred at Earshot was a huge music fan and historian of great music of all kinds. So he schooled me on this original version.  

My point in this post is to introduce you to a great song, that has seen a whole bunch of different versions over the last 60 (Whoa! 60?) years.  Don't be surprised if some new band does another version of this in the next decade or so.  It's one of those songs that lends itself to being reinvented every so often.  

Here's my personal favorite Sharpie Scribble Style drawing I've done.  I did this one just for me, hoping I'd put it up on the wall when I finally get an apartment.  Unfortunately, I had to sell it when I was in Richmond, Virginia.  I was really sick, and needed to get a motel room for a night, so I sold this drawing and another one cheap.  Again, Harley Quinn and The Joker really fit this song well.  

The First Rap Song: The Sugarhill Gang- "Rapper's Delight"

This is generally believed to be the first "rap" song ever.  1979.