I asked Carrot Topp from Radioactive Chicken Heads if he wanted to help create this blog. He is certainly an expert in Chicken Music. Between the two of us, we found ten good to great songs and arranged them in our preferred order of greatness.
NUMBER TEN “The Song Of The One Legged Chicken” by Tom T Hall
NUMBER NINE “Chicken Walk” by Hasil Adkins
NUMBER EIGHT “Chicken” by The Cramps
NUMBER SEVEN “Know Your Chicken” by Chibo Mato
NUMBER SIX “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens” by Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five
NUMBER FIVE “Magic Chicken!” by The Aquabats!
NUMBER FOUR “The Chicken In Black” by Johnny Cash
NUMBER THREE “Chick Chick” by Wang Rong Rollin
NUMBER TWO “The Funky Chicken” by Rufus Thomas
HONORABLE MENTIONS “Chicken Squawk” by MDC Super Chicken Theme Song “Chicken Fat” by Robert Preston “Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens” by Ray Stevens “Chicken Strut” by The Meters “Run Chicken Run” by Link Wray
NUMBER ONE “Psycho-Chicken” by The Fools
Here is the video, but it has a lot of hiss from the VHS tape.
BONUS TRACK “Cluck At The Moon (I Was A Teenage Werechicken)” by Radioactive Chicken Heads
Don’t get your feathers in a bunch if these songs were not in the order you would put them in. Cluck about it in the comments instead.
I was in high school when I first heard “Grove is in the Heart” on the radio in Detroit. I remember hanging out with my best friend when the song came on. We both got really excited. For some reason one of us thought the song was actually produced by a local radio station as a promotion or something. I soon discovered otherwise. Indeed the track was by this groovy band called Deee-Lite with some help from Bootsy Collins. Deee-lightful!
First I bought the cassette single. As soon as the full album, World Clique, was released, I bought the CD and I still have it. It plays perfectly even though it’s 25 years old and has been played a thousands times.
My friends and I couldn’t wait for the next album, Infinity Within. I bought it the day it come out. It’s still in the original “Eco-Pack” low-plastic packaging. I loved that album too. At that point, I had to write them a fan letter. I never wrote fan mail before. I never thought I would be inspired to do that but there I was being a total fanboy.
Lady Miss Kier was so kind to answer my mail. First she sent a postcard. Then she had her publicist enroll me in the fan-club for the band for FREE. I received back issues of their fan-zine, press photos, fliers and stickers. I continued to get cool stuff from the fan club for the next two years.
This is a press photo I received in 1993. Kier signed it for me in 2007.
At some point in 1993 I landed a DJ job at my college radio station, WDMB Impact 89FM. I loved this job. It really helped me with my self esteem and communication skills. I needed both badly. I am still very thankful that they even gave me a chance.
While I as doing the DJ thing, I got a press card in the mail explaining about the forthcoming release, Dewdrops in The Garden. I called the given phone number and left a message. Two Weeks later my college station received the new CD. The band also sent us the 12inch remix EP of “Party Happening People” on white vinyl. Somebody on Etsy is selling this for over $70.
The station manager let me keep the remix record but he also scolded me for talking to the record company without going through the music director. WHOOPS!
Sadly, the band broke up shortly after. Several post breakup products were released such as a greatest hits album and remixes. DJ Towa went on to release a number of “solo” albums as well.
Fast forward to 2007. I found out that Lady Miss Kier was going to be performing at Duluth Pride. I just had to go see her. I rounded up some friends and we made the trek north. When I got there, I found Miss Kier’s trailer was on the grounds, roped off by security.
I walked up to the ropes and yelled out, “LOVE YOU LADY MISS KIER!”. Shortly after that, I was invited to meet her! All you need is love!
She was very kind to me in person. She signed a lot of the stuff I brought with, saved from the fan club. She even kissed a photo of the band with lipstick.
The Dee-lovely Lady then invited my group to dance on stage when “Groove is in The Heart” came on. I was too starstruck to do it but I took the cool photo at the top of this article.
Thank you Lady Miss Kier, and people who worked on the Deee-Lite records. They made the world a better place.
This list is a result of both serious research and personal taste. Your personal top ten may be different. Let us know in the comments! In evaluating the songs we did consider the chart positions but this was not the sole criteria by any means.
Does the song have staying power? Has it become legendary? Was it groundbreaking in it’s time? These are the types of questions considered in creating the list. Also, we did not want to include the same artist twice, so one does pop up again in the honorable mentions.
NUMBER TEN “The Robot Song” by Yo Gabba Gabba (Spanish version)
NUMBER NINE “Monkey Vs. Robot” by James Kochalka Superstar
NUMBER EIGHT “Robot Boy” by Robyn
NUMBER SEVEN “Robots on Parade” by They Might Be Giants
NUMBER SIX “Transformers Opening Theme” (1980s original)
NUMBER FIVE “Robot Rock” by Daft Punk
NUMBER FOUR “Robots” by Flight of The Conchords
NUMBER THREE “Mechanical Man” by Devo
NUMBER TWO “The Robots” by Kraftwerk
HONORABLE MENTIONS “The Girl And The Robot” by Röyksopp ft. Robyn “Ya Robot” – Yury Chemnavsky “Theme From Robot Hamster” – Parry Gripp
NUMBER ONE “Mr Roboto” by Styx
Thanks for checking out our list of robot songs. We hope you enjoyed reviewing it as much as we did creating it.
-Wacky Alex & Robot Don
Illustration on the top of this page by BenMonster (benmonster.tv)
Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) was a German artist, graphic designer, typographer, set designer and poet. From 1923-1932 he published an arts and poetry magazine called “Merz”. What this blog is concerned about are his works of Sound Poetry.
In 1926, after a trip to Prague, he was inspired to work on his epic sound-poem called Sonate in Urlauten which he performed throughout Europe for years afterward. The sound poem depicts phonemic and syllabic expressions according to the German language. These were not words. They were sound elements from the language. The performer was expected to read every sound off the paper but improvise and interpret things like pitch and tempo.
This is an example of what the sound poem looks like and paper. Keep it mind that the letters represent German sounds not English.
Here are two short samples, as voiced by the man himself.
Now compare that to this bit of Jazz Scat Singing by the great Ella Fitzgerald.
People can do a lot with their mouths. Here is a famous example of The “Human Beat Box” style of rhythmic mouth sounds once used widely in hip-hop. It’s currently a global phenomena and does not show signs of abating. Here is a collection of mostly young people demonstrating their skills on TikTok
Take yet another turn, and here is an example of sampling mouth sounds and then triggering them with a computer or keyboard. Kraftwerk’s “Music Non Stop”.
For good measure, here is a more modern recording of Kurt Schwitter’s work.
What do you think about all of this? Leave you thoughts in the comment section below!
I don’t even know if I would ever play this song on the radio. It really looses something without the video. I am referring to a rather strange cover version of the David Bowie Classic – “The Man Who Sold The World” as performed by Bubbles. Bubbles is actually a character that appears on The Trailer Park Boys, an ongoing TV series that you can find on YouTube and IDK where else. This monster was created in 2016, the year Ziggy Stardust left our tiny planet.
The video is what makes this song worth listening. The vocals are terrible and usually unintelligible. In this way he is pissing all over David Bowie. As an avid Bowie fan, I have a hard time tolerating that but then I remember that David had a good sense of humor about himself.
I am ultimately won over by the crappy low budget production value of this video and all the mugging and posing. Bowie was all about mugging and posing.
So I love this track. Yes it sounds terrible but it goes with the gag video and thus is a fitting tribute.
For some reason, our music teacher decided that we should get into groups of three. Each group would practice a song together and then present to the class as a group. The best part was that we were allowed to pick any song we wanted. In 5th grade I was a bit of a prankster. This was a golden opportunity to get a laugh from my classmates and sweet exasperation from our music teacher.
I easily talked the other two kids in my group into my plan to disrupt the class. We were going to sing “Song of the Pious Itinerant”, also known as “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum”.
The song had been recorded by several performers over the years, but I learned the song from The New Christy Minstrels. Apparently my uncle had originally purchased a copy of their album, Tall Tales! Legends & Nonsense. I found it among other records that had been collected before I was born, but ended up at grandma’s house.
Finally it was our turn to sing our song in front of the class. I even had typed lyric sheets.
First, the intro.
Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
Of course this was taken directly from Handel’s Messiah. In the Catholic Church this is considered sacred music. We got through the intro with only a stern glance from the teacher.
Then the song goes right into a chorus
Hallelujah, I’m a bum Hallelujah, bum again Hallelujah, give me handout And you’ll be my friend
My little singing group got through nearly a minute of the song when the teacher demanded that we stop. She told us to step out to the hall and wait for her. Shortly thereafter I was in the principal’s office.
It turns out that we were committing blasphemy. WHOOPS! The reason they gave was that the music to Handel’s Messiah was too sacred to mock by using it as an intro for such a vulgar song. They sent me home with a note to my parents. My mother saw the note and asked me what happened at school. I told her. She laughed. I hope you did too.
Have you ever gotten in trouble at school for singing a song? What song? Did you sing it for class like I did, or maybe got caught in the hallway in between class? Let me know in the comments!
“I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” is a novelty song written by John Rox and performed by Gayla Peevey. She was 10 years old at the time in 1953. The Three Stooges went on to record a version in 1959. Many others have recorded it since then as well.
In the song, the singer expresses that she wants to become the proud owner of a hippopotamus. For example, these Lyrics:
Mom says a hippo would eat me up but then Teacher says the hippo is a vegetarian
The problem here is that while it is entirely true that Hippos do not eat meat, they are still very capable of killing human beings.
According to the BBC, “the hippopotamus is the world’s deadliest large land mammal, killing an estimated 500 people per year in Africa. Hippos are aggressive creatures, and they have very sharp teeth. And you would not want to get stuck under one; at up to 2,750kg they can crush a human to death.”
National Geographic has reported on conflicts between Humans and Hippos in Kenya over land and resources. They Hippos are not playing and they are tired of our crap.
So while this is a great song, maybe we should give plush toy hippos to our kids and some reserve habitat to the hippos.
Enjoy the stereo sounds of a fully automatic mechanical nickelodeon glockenspiel player-piano robot beast from Belgium. It’s also a very strange and ornate piece of furniture.
At the time that this album was recorded this Muppet Show from hell was located at a weird roadside attraction called The Gay Nineties Village located in Sikeston Missouri. This item was sold as a keepsake to the many that visited the attraction. We found this record while digging through bins at a rummage sale.
“The Gay 90s Village, Inc. was in business since the 1950’s and was initially involved in acquiring and displaying Eakins collection of machines at the Million Dollar Museum in Sikeston and The Gay 90s Melody Museum located in St. Louis. Both museums were closed when Eakins sold the bulk of his collection to Walt Disney World in the late 1970’s.” (source)
Here’s the first track as recorded right off the vinyl. You are likely to find it familiar.
The record has a full Discogs entry. Here is the track list.
FunHouse Radio 