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GOODIES MUSIC REVIEW # 21  -  GOOD OLE COUNTRY MUSIC

(from C&G #81  September 2002)

Hi there pop pickers and welcome to another Goodies Music Review.  This is the first time that we've had one for the best part of 1 year, 7 months, 4 days ... a hell of a long time anyway, but we intend to once again make them a part of the C&G occasionally, just for a bit of variety!

WHO?

It's a short trip by stubborn mule over to the wild wild west – but not Cornwall with its elaborate cream mine, arguments over the pronunciation of "scones", card games with toast and sugar cubes and showdowns with tomato sauce squirters.  No, we're going much further west than that, to the homeland of Major Charles M.Cheeseburger, Annette Funicello's bikini, "tomayto soup" and a proliferation of weird clowns (particularly in the White House!) – we're off to Australia, no … to the Good Ole U.S. of A. (though the land of Oz could well pass for the 51st state these days!)  So without further ado, before they get blown up and blackened by a clown-seeking missile and are told to "git awn back to mah plantation fer cotton pickin' time y'all" by some old Southern gentleman in a horse-drawn buggy, here are your drawling DJs Emperor Caligula (aka Brett Allender) and Peaches Stiletto (aka Linda Kay) with their review of "GOOD OLE COUNTRY MUSIC" by The Goodies, of course!

WHERE? WHEN?

"Good Ole Country Music" can be heard on:

CD: "Yum Yum - The Very Best Of The Goodies" and "Funky Gibbon - The Best Of The Goodies"

Records: "The New Goodies LP", "The Goodies Greatest Hits", "Best Of The Goodies" and on the flip side of the single "Bounce"

Episodes: "Goodies - Almost Live", Series 6, Episode 7

WHAT?

Lyrics: sung by Graeme - in a heavy good ole country boy American drawl!

I don't dig Strauss or Tchaikovsky

And the Beatles and the Bacharachs don't mean a thing to me

I hate to hear Bing Crosby croon

'Coz to me they all sound out of tune

[CHORUS:]

Give me the sound of that good ole country music

I hear it noooow, that I am homeward bouuuund

Hoooooow I love, to hear some dowwwwn home singin'

I love that good ole country souuuund

The sweetest melody by far

Is the howlin' of a coyote to an off-pitch slide guitar

I love to hear a dog in pain [howling]

Or a chicken being flattened by a train [train signal and loud cluck]

[REPEAT CHORUS]

[INSTRUMENTAL BREAK] [with coyotes howling in the background]

Sing me the harmonies

[REPEAT CHORUS - with Bill singing monotonously in the background]

WHY?

(Peaches and Emperor:)

There's just no accounting for some people's musical tastes (how else can one explain the mere existence of the Eurovision Song Contest?!), and good ole Graybags' fudges the figures even further with this tribute to the tone-deaf old cowpokes who yodelled and yowled away excruciatingly in the background of many a forgettable western movie in the 30s and 40s.  The scary part is that American country music hasn't exactly improved much all these years later, though it's probably still slightly superior to the folk singing that Bill and Graeme practiced in Hype Pressure where they firstly put their hands over their ears so that they couldn't hear anything!

However it's Graeme's frequent coyote-like howls during the chorus that really need some kind of explanation (or deep-seated psychoanalysis!)  Maybe there was a feed of Little Jimmy Osmond coming through one of his headphones that caused him to howl like the distressed patients in Hospital For Hire, or maybe some fool accidentally put on a Max Bygraves record in the next studio and he couldn't remember how to do the Disco Heave.  Or perhaps he just sat down on the Yum Yum CD cover which contained Bill's rather barbed and bitchy critique of his (and Tim's) singing ability ...!  In any case, while obviously a parody, this song would have undoubtedly been a howling success if it had been recorded in Nashville (by the likes of Wailin' Jennings!)

HOW!

Using the Black Pudding Rating System:

III     Goody Goody Yum Yum  (Emperor Caligula)

III     Goody Goody Yum Yum  (Peaches Stiletto)

THE BLACK PUDDING RATINGS SYSTEM

IIIII - Superstar.

IIII  - Officially amazing.

III   - Goody goody yum yum.

II    - Fair-y punkmother.

I     - Tripe on t' pikelets.