Who Put The Bomp - Barry Mann: 1961 Parody song

 My daughter shared this song with me and asked me if I had heard it before. I said, "Yes. I heard it when it first came out. I was 13 in  1961." I said, "Did you hear "one eyed one horned flying purple people eater?" She said "Yes." but she didn't like it. I didn't tell her that I started playing the violin at age 9 after hearing the music teacher play "one eyed one horn flying purple people eater" on the violin. Mr. Gruss was a really great violin and orchestra teacher. I played violin in the orchestra from age 9 until about age 14 when I got tired of being teased for playing the violin and carrying the case home from school. However, I started playing the Piano at age 8 and continued piano lessons until age 16 and learned to play organ and played both piano and organ at my church. In High school in Santa Fe, New Mexico my organ teacher found a pipe organ for me to play too. Which was really amazing. Then at 18 I taught myself guitar, electric guitar and flute (silver, wood and plastic). I never was that good at the violin anyway. However, my 5 years older cousin was first violin in the High School Orchestra at Glendale High School before he became a lawyer on full scholarship.

This "Who put the bomp" is a parody on "shama lama ding dong" and "bomb di did Bomp didi bomp" etc on songs during the 1950s. I was 8 in 1956 and had my own little yellow transistor radio that I held up to my head. Or if people didn't want to hear it I had my own little single earphone for listening alone. There wasn't stereo for transistor radios yet for most people. Then in Los Angeles it was all KFWB and KRLA for the best rock and roll in the Los Angeles area. I couldn't find a button that would copy for this but here is something you can paste if you want to hear the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXmsLe8t_gg

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Who Put The Bomp - Barry Mann

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Uploaded on Jun 20, 2009

The single debuted on Billboard's Hot 100 on August 7, 1961, and remained for twelve weeks, peaking at # 7[3]. Mann's version did not chart in the UK, though a cover version by the Viscounts reached # 21 there in September, 1961, and another version by Showaddywaddy charted at # 37 in August, 1982.

"Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)" is a Doo-wop style hit song from 1961 co-written (with Gerry Goffin) and recorded by Barry Mann. He was backed up by The Halos, who had previously backed up Curtis Lee on the song "Pretty Little Angel Eyes". The song was originally released as a single on the ABC-Paramount label (10237).

In this song, Mann sings about the frequent use of nonsense lyrics in Doo-Wop music, and how his girl fell in love with him after listening to several of such songs.

Examples of the type of song referred to include the Marcels' version of "Blue Moon" (in which they sing "Bomp bomp ba bomp, ba bomp ba bomp bomp" and "dip-de-dip-de-dip") and the Edsels' "Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong", both of which charted earlier the same year.

The song inspired the title of a music magazine, called "Who Put the Bomp".

The song fits into the category of "self-referential" songs. Rock songs are often about rock (We're gonna rock around the clock), reggae songs about reggae, rap songs about rap, etc. In this particular song that aspect is accentuated by the fact that Mann is a songwriter singing about songwriters.

It is also an ironic, lightly self-mocking song. This is a frequent phenomenon in popular music, M's "Pop Muzik" being an example (Wikipedia).

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