Novelty songs (mostly 50s or 60s) centred on a sound effect

Slightly taken atm with that certain evocative subsector of novelty singles where a certain sound effect is effectively the point of the record at hand, to be used intermittently (sometimes in call-and-response with the singer, sometimes in exchange for the singer, but they're often the subject being sung about). I'm thinking mostly 50s and 60s.

Examples:
Phil Harris - The Thing (1950) (the heavy knocks that represent the titular thing)
Arthur Godfrey - The Thing (1950) (another version, with much noisier knocks that contrast with the hollower arrangement)
Jack Parnell and His Rhythm - The White Suit Samba (1951) (the officially named 'guggle glub gurgle' aka the water-blowing/dripping quasi-concrete from The Man in the White Suit. Note there is also a purely instrumental version, so not that one)
Louis Prima - Beep! Beep! (1957) (his astral lover who can only communicate through space in electronic bleeps)
Tony & Joe - The Freeze (1958) (just rickety percussion so not a sound effect as such but in practice it acts in the same manner of all these others)
The Tune Rockers - The Green Mosquito (1958) (unsure how they created the mosquito buzz but would like to know)
Chubby Checker - The Fly (1961) (though it's clearly an electric shaver)
Anthony Newley - That Noise (1962) (again, I'm not sure how they made the titular noise - a loop of indeterminate clattering and quacking - but it half-invents Driving in My Car by natural Newley descendants Madness)
Alan Klein - Three Coins in the Sewer (1962) (okay maybe they're not the *point* of the record but it's still unimaginable without Meek's coins dropping into a bog and down the drain)
Edwina Biglet & The Miglets - Thing (1972) (falling just outside my self-imposed loose parameters but it's the same thing, this time with lovely Moog burbles and whooshes representing the enigmatic 'thing' they're singing about/around)

What are some others? Most major example of this sort of thing I can think of in later times is Beep by the Pussycat Dolls (where pop is concerned anyway, and anyway it depends what counts as novelty. But 'bells and whistles' can more frequently take on a very literal meaning in mainstream dance music).

(I'm less interested atm in veering into the realm of heavy vocal FX that compositionally play a similar role, but regardless, The Purple People Eater and Witch Doctor - and later Joy Sarney's Mr Punch-themed Naughty Naughty Naughty - sit in conjunction. Plus on a separate related note there's a few 50s hit instrumentals that come to mind (Leroy Anderson's The Syncopated Clock and The Typewriter, and The Singing Dogs stuff.)

More onomatopoeia than sound effects, maybe, but:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeQGxJWGbb8

Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot - Comic Strip

MIA - Paper Planes, in which sound effects complete sentences

Einojuhani Rautavaara - Cantus Arcticus (for orchestra and recorded bird sounds)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2FU1KU4_U

With each post I stray further and further from the spirit of the question, so that's all from me.

No wait

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=licNLUzYpo0

Yeah I was cutting it off in the 70s personally but the thread can go anywhere :)

Wonder Dog* was in my head as I was typing The Singing Dogs. It seemingly inspired this too, which did almost as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js5KZrcaZ0k

(* played by a young Simon Cowell on a TV interview! In a voice that makes me think more of Leigh Bowery)

(where pop is concerned anyway, and anyway it depends what counts as novelty. But 'bells and whistles' can more frequently take on a very literal meaning in mainstream dance music).

I was thinking that there was a kind of mini-revival of the novelty sound-effects song with the development of the fairlight and sampling technology, Telex's Spike Jones tribute, some Art of Noise tracks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0psWy_XLP0g

Jim Lowe - Close the Door (1955)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDC6nHmXAuc

Nervous Norvus, "Transfusion" (1956)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbhvZ2y1V80

... great record btw.

"Knock Three Times" by Dawn, if it's a novelty song?

"Poing" doesn't count really i guess?

Tornadoes: "Telstar"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryrEPzsx1gQ

...or,"How Joe Meek Got His Toilet On Radios All Over The World"

One of my favorites, The Polaras' "Cricket."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fGPfvvitoU

I'm guessing 'I'm A Mummy' doesn't count, despite its awesome recurring bike horn sound effect.

“Poing” is a great example!

Jim Lowe - Close the Door (1955)

Oh! This one's great, in it's way. An antecedent to Hampenberg's Ducktoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44RczutIZTQ

The, Cricket, There's a New Sound, I'm a Mummy and Transfusion all also get to exactly what I had in mind (i.e. the sfx are the centre of the tracks). I'll go with Knock Three Times as well even if its a bit more innocuous there.

Poing was one I had in mind where dance hits are concerned, alongside:
- DJ Duke - Blow Your Whistle
- DJ Alligator Project - The Whistle Song
- Winx - Don't Laugh
- Perfect Phase - Horny Horns (possibly one of the most extreme UK hits ever)
- The aforesaid Ducktoy

Long before Don't Laugh was The Hysterics's Five Tracks of Laughter EP (#44 in the UK singles chart), a pointless comedy record of rhythmic laughing and the like.

Telstar uses sound effects a bit differently imo (just the intro/outro) but a great suggestion still. I also like the idea of the Fairlight revival (I guess with Art of Noise the novelty applies more to their post-ZTT period..)

"The Streak"!

I was thinking 'Stranded in the Jungle' by The Cadets might fit, but on a relisten the SFX are a lot more minor than I remembered. I do think a major point of the song is their inclusion, though, so could still work?

I've also been desperately searching my memory banks b/c I'm sure there should be some 1950s UFO songs that fit this, but the only one I'm coming up with is 'The Flying Saucer', which is more of a proto-sampling record than a sound effects record.

love this thread, thanks all

Spike Jones, "You Always Hurt the One you Love"

great thread idea.

Would Connie Francis - Stupid Cupid count? The "cupid's bow" sound effect is definitely a hook, but arguably the song could stand on its own so long as there was SOMETHING there. (It's also leaning on the vocal novelty of Francis's hiccupy delivery of the title line, I guess.)

Nervous Norvus is a great pick. He went to the vocal-novelty well also, with a Tarzan yell on "Ape Call."

rabbitholed into this guy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Foley_(sound_effects_artist)

who invented the Tarzan yell sound among other things

omg xpost!!

luv u Doc C

Stupid Cupid is a sort of borderline example I suppose. Nice to see it mentioned.

Maybe not enough weird sound repetition in this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h7fcdN6bWY

I think this counts, from The Girl Can’t Help It!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEyjpScJdMQ

I didn't include The Martian Hop (or the Chipmunks) for that reason but it's in the same universe

how about songs where 'real' instruments are used to replicate a sound effect, e.g. I'm Wild About Horns On Automobiles That Go Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZegcXOZ0jo

(bang! bang!) Maxwell’s Silver Hammer

'73 but i think this counts. bobby bare, "marie laveau." tune essentially built around the hokey witch scream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpZzehuWdM4

i genuinely hate this song. turns out shel silverstein wrote it and, if a yt commenter is correct, also provided the scream.

how about songs where 'real' instruments are used to replicate a sound effect

trumpet neighing at the end of xmas staple "sleigh ride" comes immediately to mind

Not really a novelty song, but how about the bells at the beginning & end of "Church Bells May Ring"?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLl1eDAWMeA

(There were other recordings of this song, one by the Four Seasons... think they all have bells.)

This maybe kinda sorta counts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lt4euqZLsY

Not really a novelty song, but how about the bells at the beginning & end of "Church Bells May Ring"?

It still has the right sort of cadence! CCBB not quite as much but it's not far off IG

The old Las Vegas Grind comps were chock full of this kind of stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ekIjJBsCHg

It still has the right sort of cadence! CCBB not quite as much but it's not far off IG

I've gone blind, honestly thought I was quoting I'm Wild About Horns here. Church Bells more in the Telstar category probably.

also xp Nice find, I've never actually heard those comps

How could I forget Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich?!!??!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsExj_0IHEs

My beloved. Although I'd argue that it veers a bit further from 'the sound effect is the point of the song' than some of these (indispensable though the horsewhip is).

There's definitely a lot going on in that song!

Wonder Dog! I've been looking for that song for ages... so good

The TV appearance I mentioned earlier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp6RvcdjNXE

I guess musique concrète etc is not really in the spirit of the thread but I feel like Hugh Le Caine's Dripsody (1955) almost crosses into the realm of the snappy novelty track. Almost.

houdini said of this parish fairly recently turned me onto this great Harry H Corbett novelty from 1962 - 'Junk Shop' yes, with a rickety dissonant pans-and-pots riff. Suits this thread to a tee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W50waA8lCBU

Also in the literalist industrial stakes, Ken Williams' My Very Own (Trash Can) from '63, which I discovered through one of the Las Vegas Grind comps mentioned upthread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXbaCHoJCQ4

Following from Harry H. Corbett I'm somewhat disappointed to find that is by Ken Williams and not Kenneth Williams.

Well quite. I wonder if he has anything that fits.

Did anyone mention the 'Are You Being Served?' theme tune upthread?

LOL

hey, they did it before floyd!

1974(sorry): “Cold Weather” by the Upsetters, featuring rain effects apparently achieved by miking up a urinal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKuZxRF-rN0

Here's some more I've discovered (mostly by going through old magazine scans) since I last bumped this thread, all with the same sort of cadence as I explained in the op:

The Milo Twins - Baby Buggy Boogie (1948) (what I imagine is a baby going 'lala' though it sounds a bit like a harmonica)
Billy Briggs - Chew Tobacco Rag (1951) and Chew Tobacco Rag (No. 2) (1951) (squidgy 'chewing' sounds. Part 2 is better because the chewing hook also has some blowing raspberries-type sound)
Billy Briggs - Alarm Clock Boogie (1951) (framed as his frustration about his constant awakening by the alarm clock, which frequently appears and is a very dissonant presence)
Wade Ray - Idaho Red (1954) (truck noises, mostly a horn)
The Sportsmen - Hot Rod Hop (1955) (hot rod sounds - grunting motors, honking horns, gas noises, and so on. Amazingly jerky intro and mid-song instrumental included)
Doc Stark(e)s and the Nite Riders - Vacation Train (1955) (I'm aware of quite a few singles from this time with train noises but this seemingly only one of two that keeps them coming throughout - a fair smattering of chuggachugga noises and screeching whistles, basically)
Cyril Stapleton - Tiger Tango (1956) (naturally no actual tiger growls were available, instead deep brass groans mimic them)
Rusty Draper - In the Middle of the House (1956) (the other train one. The song is about a railroad passing right through Rusty's abode and how they do away with unwanted visitors by sitting them in the way of oncoming trains, ahem. Abrupt twist ending too. This was a US hit and there are a few other versions of this I haven't yet heard yet - but will shortly - so idk how well they replicate the train dissonance).
Bill Hayes - Message from James Dean (1956) (Great and fast but probably not just a little tasteless - a cheery death disc about JD's demise with the horrid recreated noises of his disaster peppered throughout. The same sort of record as Nervous Norvus' Dig, which I think was a few months earlier).
Ray Bolger - The Cricket Song (1957) (also covered by Max Bygraves) (speaks for itself)
Danny Overbea - Space Time (1958) (the hook is a collage of sci-fi trickery - namely a countdown, loud explosion, musical phrase and alien chatter)
John McFarland Sextet - The Chimp and the Bumble Bee (1959) (McFarland may have more of these but this one was a single. I hear plenty of chimp, not so much bumble bee)
Billy Massey - Ghost Town (1960) (a western-ish near-instrumental with near-constant rounds of bullets being fired throughout)
Johnny & The Hurricanes - Rockin' Goose (1960) (this might as well count. The goose sound is created by the sax reed)
Lawrence Welk - Breakwater (1963) (the waters themselves provide a frequent ambient accompaniment, albeit a quite noisy one)
The Singing Postman - Sound Barrier (1967) (very strange as a listening experience, the Postman's (affected?) accent and gentle strumming constantly interrupted by loud jet engines - specifically each time he sings 'Each time I start to play...' - to illustrate the issue of noise pollution in Anglia)

Plus here's some that have a sound effect only once or twice
Kip Tyler and His Flips - Jungle Hop (1958)
The Storms - Thunder (1959)
Mike Roncone - Train Ride (1959)

And some non-novelty records with the sounds of mist or wind

Dick Noel - Mist (1950)
The Sons of the Pioneers - Wind (1951)
Gospel Travelers - God's Chariot (Pts 1 and 2) (1952)
Joe Valino - The Wind in the Riggin (1957)
The Jewels - The Wind (1959)

1974(sorry): “Cold Weather” by the Upsetters, featuring rain effects apparently achieved by miking up a urinal.

This remind me, Chris Welch in a 1969 MM article on reggae says: "Many of the sounds of Reggae are "musique concrete" or "cement waltz," some of the everyday sounds that occur in the Reggaeist's life; a dripping tap, a lavatory being flushed, the sound of a stomach, the beauty of a birdcall — thus: "Ark, ark, Belay there!"". My reggae knowledge clearly isn't up to shape because I don't know what examples he had in mind. Not in 1969. Anyone?

re:Nervous Norvus, obv I don't mean Dig I mean Transfusion

From 68 (IIRC), some bottle smashing adds to the menace of “Kimble” but I’m not sure about the relationship of the sound effect to the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fmbc101YEA

1965, so not reggae yet, but Prince Buster’s “Skahara” features machine gun sounds that don’t sound much like machine guns to me (I’m wondering if they are from a sewing machine):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r91TsqZWZUo

(His Al Capone also has a car skidding)

So there are a few examples but I can’t think of enough to justify that Chris Welch quote. I’d be very interested to hear what”the sound of a stomach” might be.

If infant-babble counts as a sound effect, there's Buzz Clifford's "Baby Sittin' Boogie"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omFhxQM7kfE

This long without a mention of "Ring My Bell"?

Good Vibrations- theramin

Theremin is an instrument, not a sound effect, and I believe that it's a Tannerin on 'Good Vibrations' anyway.

Sleigh Ride (mentioned above) also has the use of the slapstick to mimic the crack of a whip. Every junior high school band owns one for precisely this reason.

Vibraslap is another thing that only gets used once or twice a year.

I'd count Baby Sittin' Boogie for sure, it has the same format as that which I'm after.

Another 60s novelty with a baby is Microbe's Groovy Baby but the baby talk there is slightly less central - although the track wouldn't have existed without it.

Re:whips I'm aware of two 50s/60s ones just called 'The Whip', by The Originals and the Frantics. Besides those, Sleigh Ride and Xanadu I can't think of any for years and then suddenly there are three in the later months of 1984 (DM's Master and Servant, XTC's Shake Your Donkey Up, the Jacksons' Torture). I'd like to think the existence of the Fairlight inspired people who didn't even have Fairlights to get sfx creative like so.

“Mule Train” has whips, at least Tennessee Ernie Ford’s and Frankie Laine’s do. They might be late 40s though? Bing’s version replaces whip noises with claps / slaps and insults.

doesn't meet thread criteria but re: chris welch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6V1iT2Myl0

thread title isn't "post the first song with an unusual sound that pops into your head"

i think that this might count:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1agCbIrlTw
human expression - optical sound

I knew there was a Who song that met the criteria:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPtj0KB_owU

^ amazing song btw

Bill Oddie’s “Beethoven’s Fifth” (1967) gets quite creative with a sample from - yes - Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. The song is at 26:57 in the below video. :)

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

Fantastic! That's really quite startling for 67. Also good calls upthread too. I'd never considered Waspman.

I don't know if "Machines" by Manfred Mann belongs on here or not, I don't actually know what's making the noises on this track. Anyway it's from the "Machines" EP, no. 1 in the UK EP chart (which I didn't even know existed!) in May 1966.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu6cMHBgSAk

Probably better known now from the Lothar & the Hand People cover version - which is much closer to the original than I thought it was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ9nKIlUt6Q