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GOODIES MUSIC REVIEW #33 – TERRAPINS
(from C&G #147 February 2008)
Hi there pop pickers and welcome to another Goodies Music Review.
WHO?
.
After their last writeup of Nappy Love your baby-babbling music reviewers Emperor Caligula (aka Brett Allender) and Peaches Stiletto (aka Linda Kay) have indeed gone from being two to three (No, not THAT … thankfully (for Peaches' sake)!!) and they are about to put their new-found maturity to the test on a couple of vitally important top-secret projects (that we'll only tell you about and nobody else, we promise!).
The Emperor is being parachuted into Germany in the dead of night, not to buy a box of fine cigars for his funny-looking Prime Minister, but to win the Eurovision Song Contest with his punk rock rendition of "You Vill Do Der Funky Gibbon Now!" which should definitely scare the bejabbers out of border guards Hans and Fritz … and any other Germans that aren't completely tone deaf. We can only hope that he crash-lands in a paddock and has to have an implant of his teddy bear's voice box, as "Mama" would be about the most intelligent thing that he's had to say in more than 30 music reviews to date!
As for Peaches, her mission is to infiltrate the Loch Jaw school and lull the Matron to sleep (a few seconds of SleepalongaMax Volume 98 should do the trick there) before reprogramming the batallion of baby warriors to be her very own private army. She can then hatch plans to get them to do the housework and help her to rule the world, the universe, Mars, maybe even the Radio Times … and perhaps then she'll even take over the BBC so that we can finally get some flamin' Goodies repeats screened … !
Anyway while we're waiting for the next 20 years for all of that to happen (particularly the Goodies repeats!), we'll take you over to Dr G. Garden's Fish (& Other Aquatic Beasties) Farm and your dawdling DJs with their review of "Terrapins", by The Goodies.
WHERE? WHEN?
"Terrapins" can only be heard on the 70's album "The Beastly Record".
WHAT?
Lyrics: sung by Bill, with backing mainly from Graeme
Oh you are certain of a chuckle with a chicken or a chimpanzee
The merest mention of a marmoset guarantees hilarity
A gibbon always gets a grin (whoop)
But none of them are fairer than a t-t-terra-pin
T-t-t-t terrapins (mad about), T-t-t-t terrapins (can't live without)
T-t-t-t terrapins, everybody sing this song (ooh-ooh)
T-t-t-t terrapins (how I love), T-t-t-t terrapins (thinking of)
T-t-t-t terrapins, everybody sing along
You can depend on a pangolin to get them rolling in the aisles
(pangolin, pangolin, pangolin)
A bat or a bandicoot, a cougar or a crocodile
A ferret is a funsome thing (eek)
But if they're gonna cheer ya, you've gotta let them hear ya sing
Not n-n-n-n nappy pins, nor s-s-s-s safety pins
But t-t-t-t terrapins, everybody sing this song
Not dr-dr-dr-dr drawing pins, nor lu-lu-lu-lu lupins
But t-t-t-t terrapins, everybody sing along
Let me hear you now
T-t-t-t terrapins (give me them), T-t-t-t terrapins (and again)
T-t-t-t terrapins, everybody sing this song
T-t-t-t terrapins (munchable), T-t-t-t terrapins (crunchable)
T-t-t-t terrapins, everybody sing along
The t-t terrapin song (what a wonderful song)
WHY?
(Peaches Stiletto):
The animal-obsessed Goodies are at it again with this ode to that hero on a half-shell, the terrapin. But why terrapins? Well, let's face it . . . turtle is not an easy word to rhyme. And while terrapins resemble sea turtles they don't belong to that particular genus. In fact they are of the family Emydidae (Emmy did what??) and are more closely related to box turtles (as in "think outside the"). This confusion may be the result of reptile dysfunction, in the sense that the family called Terrapene are in fact not typically called terrapins. Confused enough yet? Okay, well let's clarify this once and for all. Terrapins are turtles, and terrapins are funny. Terrapins are also cool. How many other animals can say they have been symbols for The Grateful Dead (besides those colorful, leg-kicking bears)? The terrapin is also the mascot for the University of Maryland. Not bad for an animal that spends much of its life in brackish water. Which brings us to the point . . . is something that spends much of its life in brackish water really munchable and crunchable? And how exactly did they find this out? Just keep in mind before you start hunting for the little delicacies that the Diamondback Terrapin is on the endangered species, listed as "threatened." Various websites cite cars and crab traps as the terrapins greatest threat, but if any environmentalist has seen the way Graeme offers them up as delicacies in Black and White Beauty, they'd know what the real problem is . . . terrapins taste good! Terrapin soup, anyone?
(Emperor Caligula):
As one of the kingpins of writing successful comedy songs in the 1970s, Bill had a simple formula as his lynchpin for getting people to chuckle at his songs – dro-pin a funny animal name and you'll soon have everyone in a tails-pin with laughter.
Funky ferrets and gigglesome gibbons were used to underpin many an Oddie song, but this one puts a stickpin into the theory that these critters formed his favourite funny words. Instead it's the humble, munchable, crunchable terrapin that is Bill's headpin of the animal kingdom and apparently no other "pins" are good enough either.
And just when I thought that Cho-pin was his favourite composer, Pip-pin was his best-loved musical and ten-pin bowling was his main relaxation too. Well I guess that's tortoise all a lesson then, but t 'urt 'le subside eventually! Oh well, I guess I'll just have to go back into my shell again until then.
HOW!
Using the Black Pudding Rating System:
III (Peaches Stiletto)
III Goody Goody Yum Yum (Emperor Caligula)
THE BLACK PUDDING RATINGS SYSTEM
IIIII - Superstar.
IIII - Officially Amazing.
III - Goody Goody Yum Yum.
II - Fair-y Punkmother.
I - Tripe on t' pikelets.
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