The Homer & Jethro Project #39

#39

At long last.
We are at the tipping point, people.
We can finally make the switch to an alternating day format for the posts which when I think about it doesn't really mean squat for me since I'm typing this stuff up like six months ago and whether it is set to post on one or the other day doesn't really change anything, but you know. It is what it is.

You simply have an extra day to digest the previous day's musical selections.

Lucky you.

March 1959 - RCA 47-7493 - Middle-Aged Teenager / Don't Sing Along (On Top of Old Smoky)

A side is something I can relate to whenever I go out and realize I could be the parent of most of the people cluttering up the fucking place taking selfies and pictures of their food as if anybody gives a shit what they ate. I just don't feel old until I move.

B side. Old old folk song. You know it. You have your own alternate lyrics. They may or may not be an improvement on those provided by  H & J.

August 1959 - RCA 47-7585 - Battle of Kookamonga / Waterloo


A side began life as an historical song by Jimmy Driftwood (also responsible for "Monkey and the Baboon" in the previous post) about "The Battle of New Orleans" which was a hit for Johnny Horton. (He'd die in a motor vehicle accident a couple years later.)

As for the single in question here:

A full four years before nebbish shmuck Allan Sherman would strike novelty song gold with the Summer Camp classic "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" Homer and Jethro remade the Johnny Horton hit into their own lesser known Summer Camp Classic which they featured in a movie called "Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar" in 1965 to little or no success.


B side is a take on Stonewall Jackson's song "Waterloo" which predates the much more enjoyable song of the same name by Swedish musical juggernaut ABBA. Perhaps Stonewall needed a nice sparkly lame' jumpsuit to really push it over the top. Something really ballsnug to make a definitive statement.

For their part Homer and Jethro understand the song is about hubris.
They have enough to spare and have met their Waterloo many times before us. Everybody has to meet theirs. You too someday.

Amen.