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#155-Ballad of Chuckles The Clown (1995)
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A song about the Chuckles The Clown episode from the Mary Tyler Moore Show
folk funny political sixties novelty gentle prolific idiosyncratic lehrer jefferson airplane ochs paxton steve goodman
Artist picture
Tom Paxton meets Jefferson Airplane. Extremely prolific singer songwriter with a wide range of styles from bizarre novelty tunes and surrealistic poetic songs t
With more than 300 songs and counting and for more than 30 years, I have written in a variety of acoustic styles from novelty tunes to love songs to historical ballads to poetic surrealistic songs to retro-acoustic pop. From bizarre to traditional from funny to poignant, whatever style the song is in, the melodies are usually memorable and the lyrics unpredictable. This site will eventually contain rough often first take demos of my entire song catalogue. Many of the earliest songs when I first started writing will of course be shaky. So expect the songs to get better as time goes on. Feel free to come back and browse often as I will constantly be adding songs, one by one in chronological order, starting in 1974. If you are looking for some unusual songs to cover from a little known but unique artist, you have come to the right place. Just e-mail me. If you find a song here that intrigues you, but you don't like a line or two, or you think it needs a bridge, drop me an e-mail and maybe you can earn writer's credit if it gets that song to be recorded or performed.... otherwise just enjoy. You can become a Rob Lincoln fan at no cost to you. I promise that if you keep coming back there will be some real surprises along the way. While mostly acoustic, some original material will veer into folk rock and even 60's pop, but the garage rock and loudest material will also be found in full band arrangement at soundclick.com/abrasiveflowers Eventually some of these 300+ tunes may be rerecorded and make it on to CD, including a novelty CD that would be suitable for Dr. Demento or an historical ballad CD or a political song CD--but until then, this is the only site you can hear most of these songs. (A few of my songs CAN be found on songramp.com/RobLincoln and myspace.com/lessickandlincoln)
Song Info
Genre
Podcasts Comedy
Charts
#2,362 today Peak #34
#524 in subgenre Peak #10
Author
Rob Lincoln
Rights
1995
Uploaded
May 25, 2008
Track Files
MP3
MP3 3.2 MB 128 kbps 3:27
Story behind the song
The post Lessick & Lincoln period began with this silly song based not only on a television show (The Mary Tyler Moore Show) but on specific episode of the MTM Show. My favorite episode just so happend to be voted a few years after I wrote this song the greatest single episode in television comedy history (by TV Guide viewers who rated MTM the greatest sitcom and "Chuckles The Clown" the very best episode). Hopefully the song's lyrics speak for itself. This recording skyrocketed to #8 on the novelty charts at Songramp.com in 2006. Mp3 Club listeners rated it 4.0 out of 5.0...Comments included: "Excellent" "by including the Mary Tyler Moore crew in the song you're limiting the longivity of the song" "Loved that show and I remember that episode"
Lyrics
This is a story with a tragic/comic twist About a clown named Chuckles who never did exist It was in the early /70's in Minneapolis/St. Paul Where Chuckles had his rise and where Chuckles has his fall (Chorus) A little song A little dance A little seltzer down the pants A little song A little dance A little seltzer down the pants Chuckles never got along with Murray, Ted and Lou But with Mary Richards whom he hardly even knew Chuckles liked to squirt a lapel flower in her face Sue Ann Niven always thought the man was in bad taste (Chorus) It was on a happy holiday, it was in a great parade Chuckles was dressed as Mr. Peanut and to the crowd he waved Little did he know his biggest fan was just behind A giant pachaderm who thought it was his suppertime (Chorus) The elephant lifted Chuckles with his mighty trunk He thought that Mr. Peanut was a goober he could shuck But when he tried to shell old Chuckles didn't crack so good And he didn't taste the way a peanut always should (Chorus) The fact that Chuckles died that way broke up the newsroom staff Lou, Sue, Ted and Murray they had a hardy laugh But when it came the time to lay poor Chuckles in the grave It was Mary Richards who at the funeral could not behave (Chorus) The pastor gave a serman and everybody cried He said as long as people laugh old Chuckles still alive Then Mary she stopped laughing and she began to cry While everyone remembered Chuckles favorite words and they smiled (Chorus) The moral of this story is that there can be good TV Wherever literate writers are struggling to be free To write about deep messages that pertain to life and death A philosophy of life that spritzes with such moral depth A little song A little dance A little seltzer down the pants A little song A little dance A little seltzer down the pants
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