(Roughly) Daily

Comedy songs and musical parodies have been around for ages. But the novelty song– a performance rooted in a gimmick– dates from the 1920s. Dickie Goodman was a master of that arcane form, one whose gimmick presaged the popular music era in which we live…

On November 6th, 1989, a guy named Dickie Goodman died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Ironically, this sad act marked the end for the creator of a specific kind of novelty record known as the “break-in.” Seen nowadays as a (dubious) precursor to sampling [see here], a “break-in” record is created by using clips of other songs to tell a story or perform a skit, usually with narration of some sort.

The written word cannot even begin to do the art form justice — and yes, it is an art form — so here’s an audio example by the king himself, Dickie Goodman. “Mr. Jaws” was a satire of the movie blockbuster Jaws, and was a Top 10 hit in the latter part of 1975.

… Jump back to 1956. Rock ‘n’ roll music is starting to really break through to the masses. The charts are full of records by Elvis, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, and countless others. In the middle of 1956, two struggling songwriters named Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman created something that would finally put them on the map… but not as songwriters.

They decided to create a novelty record by writing a fake newscast about an alien invasion from outer space, but while they would ask the questions, the answers would be provided by musical snippets from popular records of the day. After a lot of shopping around and rejections, they finally created their own label and released “The Flying Saucer.”

Surprisingly, the record was a big hit, making it all the way to #3 on the Billboard chart and hitting the top of the charts in some local markets. Unsurprisingly, there were numerous lawsuits once the record became a hit. Most of the record labels that had a sample on “The Flying Saucer” sued Buchanan and Goodman for copyright infringement. The whole legal morass that followed is too much to detail here, but in the end it was decided that the record was a new work in the form of satire and wasn’t infringing on anyone’s copyright. It was one of those rare cases where the little guy actually won…

Goodman continued a balancing act over the next couple of decades between trying to be a legitimate songwriter and record producer, and creating more “break-in” records. He rubbed shoulders with the charts from time to time, but never had another big breakthrough until “Mr. Jaws” in 1975. Once that record came and went, he kept making novelty records periodically until his untimely end in 1989.

What’s really beautiful about Goodman’s novelty records — and this is a serious statement — is they’re excellent time capsules of different eras. Pick up any of his records and you’ll get an idea as to what was being played on the radio at the time. Wanna know what was big in 1969? Check out “On Campus.”…

Ol’ Dickie also left behind a nice sampling (no pun intended) of what was on the public’s mind as well. Communism, the flying saucer craze, the moon landing, campus unrest, Watergate, and the energy crisis were just a few topics covered by both the evening news and Goodman’s records. He also satirized television shows like Ben Casey, The Untouchables, Bonanza, Batman, and Happy Days among others, and various movies including Superfly, Shaft, King Kong, Star Wars, and E.T.

Keep in mind that these may look easy to do, but they’re not. Granted, anybody can throw one together (and many others have over the years), but to make one that’s actually funny is no simple task…

Honoring a pioneer: “Dickie Goodman and the Art of the ‘Break-In’ Record,” from @rebeatmag.

* DJ Spooky

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As we eulogize our elders, we might recall that the #1 song in the U.S, on this date in 2002 was “Always on Time,” by Ja Rule featuring Ashanti. It has been sampled (at least) 9 times since.