Straight from hell, the Peking amusement park girls proudly presents: The world's most annoying song! Now to be found on Youtube:
Hahahahahaha song
David Gerstein posted a comment about it over at Cartoon Brew, wich I hope he don't mind me posting here. (David is THE expert when it comes to old songs in cartoons and early comics.)
"Holy cow. That’s “Johnny Verbeck” (or Rebeck or Dunderbeck), the turn-of-the-century drinking song about the cat- and dog-meat butcher with his marvelous sausage machine. I’d know the melody anywhere, though the meter has been altered somewhat.
(Comparison: it’s also in the Oswald Rabbit cartoon COLLEGE, where you can hear it during the sports sequence.) “She gave the crank a heck of a yank— and Johnny Verbeck was meat!”
Now, I wonder if that song is on one of those compilations of old rag time songs David has given me. It sure sounds familar. Gotta check it out.
Update May 11: I found another song that sounds just like this chinese Hahahaha song: "The Laughing Policeman" sung by Charles Penrose from 1926. It's just as annoying as the song linked above and worth tracking down. It's on a compilation called "Music hall Memories" with songs from 1906 to 1938.
3 comments:
Hey Joakim,
You say I'm "THE expert when it comes to old songs in cartoons and early comics..." but you haven't met Daniel Goldmark or Cole Johnson, both of them with knowledge to put me to shame!
The more I learn about vintage music, in fact, the more I'm awed by what I still DON'T know. Besides, my focus is squarely on minstrel and music hall tunes from 1890-1920, whereas Cole focuses on the period immediately afterward and Daniel on musicians and composers themselves. Each could tell you as much about an early cartoon score as I could, and the facts each of us picked to tell would be completely different! Which just proves EVERYONE ought to be studying this subject... heh, heh!
The present discussion of "Johnny Verbeck" led me to do some more research into the tune. I didn't know as much about it as I thought. The "Dunderbeck" version evidently came first, as a stage song as early as 1876. The melody began several years earlier, as "Son of a Gambolier"; and another song to use the melody is titled "Rambling Wreck from Georgia Tech," describing a college sportsman. Over time, "Rambling Wreck" began to be sung to a different melody (example: http://www.archive.org/details/soundie_13), but the original version was evidently still known in 1930 -- and THAT explains its use in the Oswald cartoon (!).
New one on me!
Killarney! "The Laughing Policeman" now, is it, lad?
That too had its origin in an earlier song... "The Laughing Song" by George W. Johnson, the first famous Black recording artist: http://www.archive.org/details/GeorgeWJohnson
I believe "Laughing Song" was later given the new policeman lyrics to avoid charges of racism, though it's Johnson's other most famous song, "The Whistling Coon," that's really the most racist song I've ever heard (I'm not exaggerating!).
Me, I'm partial to Johnson's nonracial "Carving the Duck," for obvious reasons. p-:
This is really interesting! Wanna hear all of those songs. I hate that melody almost as much as I love it. :-)
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