{"id":34558,"date":"2025-07-20T19:39:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T00:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=34558"},"modified":"2025-07-20T19:39:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T00:39:32","slug":"the-world-of-weird-novelty-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=34558","title":{"rendered":"The World of Weird Novelty Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>You would think I would have heard of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_New_Vaudeville_Band\">New Vaudeville Band<\/a>.  I listen to the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Neil Innes and the Rutles &#8212; how could I not know of the New Vaudeville Band?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We all have our cultural blindspots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not only is their greatest hit (albeit one recorded by session musicians, not the band who performed as the New Vaudeville Band live) about <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Winchester_Cathedral\">a thousand year-old English cathedral<\/a>, but it topped the singles chart <em>and<\/em> Frank Sinatra covered it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here it is.  &#8220;Winchester Cathedral&#8221; &#8212; a song of thwarted love and an imposing Gothic cathedral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The New Vaudeville Band &quot;Winchester Cathedral&quot; on The Ed Sullivan Show\" width=\"750\" height=\"563\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EmLqL6HlwNg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>it <em>is<\/em> kinda catchy.  And kitchy.  The kind of song made by people who make noises for the talkies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just for fun, here&#8217;s Frank Sinatra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Winchester Cathedral\" width=\"750\" height=\"563\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tJAj-XofI5c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You would think I would have heard of the New Vaudeville Band. I listen to the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Neil Innes and the Rutles &#8212; how could I not know of the New Vaudeville Band? We all have our cultural blindspots. Not only is their greatest hit (albeit one recorded by session musicians,<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=34558\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;The World of Weird Novelty Songs&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[5254,4848,5256,5255],"class_list":["post-34558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-frank-sinatra","tag-the-bonzo-dog-band","tag-the-new-vaudeville-band","tag-winchester-cathedral","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}