Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep

January 18, 2011 5:01 PM

Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep: Lally Stott (original version) ll Middle of the Road (Top of the Pops) ll The Strollers (Malaysia) ll Koivisto Sisters (Finland) ll Snaps (Italo) ll The Jay Boys (Reggae) ll Chai Mimi and 鳳飛飛 - 愛情多甜蜜 (Mandarin) ll Tyyne Lipasti and Aki, Turo & Hepamamas (Finland?) ll Børre & Gibb (Norway) ll Paul Mauriat (France) ll Los Continuados (Spanish) ll Mac & Katie Kissoon and Lush (Britain) ll The X Factor
posted by puny human (25 comments total)

I have a strange affection for this song. Thank you.

It's used well in the excellent, well-soundtracked film Breakfast on Pluto.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:11 PM on January 18, 2011

I really miss powder blue bell-bottomed no-secrets pantsuits. (On girls, I mean.)
posted by Mike D at 6:07 PM on January 18, 2011

It was the number one song on the day of my birth, (the Middle of the Road version). Curiously, those who know me will tell you that I am both largely chirpy and enormously cheap.
posted by Sparx at 6:09 PM on January 18, 2011

Actually, I was referring to this Middle of the Road rendition. Should have checked the linked version first.
posted by Mike D at 6:10 PM on January 18, 2011

While we're on bubblegum, I have to link this Tommy Roe - Sweet Pea clip because the little girl singing at the 1 min. mark is ADORABLE!
posted by puny human at 6:21 PM on January 18, 2011

I'm most familiar with the version by the Kissoons (Middle of the Road? Ugh!), but I had NO idea Lush covered it too. It's lovely. (Link from original post, repeated here so you don't miss it.) Even better, I just found out by poking around YouTube that Lush covered Outdoor Miner (Lush version | Wire original with amateur video). Which led me to Gus and Fin's ukelele cover of Outdoor Miner, and then this recent interview with Miki, as well as this amazingly crisp version of Ladykillers.

OK. Done now. Nice post!
posted by maudlin at 6:23 PM on January 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Avian fledgling behavior deconstructed in pop music. Always excellent.
posted by ovvl at 6:25 PM on January 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

I have the Lush version on a poll-tax protest CD called Alvin Lives in Leeds. Which I purchased mainly because it also has Robyn Hitchcock doing "Kung Fu Fighting."
posted by Man-Thing at 6:29 PM on January 18, 2011

I never heard this song before. It's great! But what came first, this or "Cum on feel the Noize?", because the "far far away" line sounds a lot like "wild, wild, wild" line in "Noize".
posted by Faze at 6:31 PM on January 18, 2011

I like this song, too. I am most familiar with the Middle Of The Road version but I also have a version by The Panda Peeple that sounds like a novelty song but I can't find a YT link for it.
posted by bdave at 6:33 PM on January 18, 2011

Man-Thing: "Which I purchased mainly because it also has Robyn Hitchcock doing "Kung Fu Fighting.""

::dies:: ::rises again:: ::runs to YouTube:: ::finds it elsewhere with extra special glorious goodness::

Bonus: George McCrae and his fine, fine pants. But what I have not yet been able to find anywhere is the endless, ecstatic version of Rock Your Baby that Greil Marcus described several years ago.

Dick Slessig Combo, presented by Jessica Bronson, "Rock Your Baby," at the Portland, Ore., Art Museum (July 7) Carl Bronson, bass, Steve Goodfriend, drums, and Mark Lightcap, guitar -- the Dick Slessig Combo, as in dyslexic -- were playing on L.A. conceptual artist Jessica Bronson's internally lit bandstand for the Portland opening of "Let's Entertain," a motley assemblage of glamorous art statements first staged at the Walker in Minneapolis.

They were at least a half-hour into a performance that would eventually cover 90 minutes before I realized the nearly abstract, circular pattern the trio was offering as the meaning of life -- it was all they were playing, anyway -- was from George McCrae's effortlessly seductive 1974 Miami disco hit. Or rather the pattern wasn't from the tune, it was the tune, the thing itself. Variation was never McCrae's point (the big moment in his "Rock Your Baby," the equivalent of the guitar solo, is when he barely whispers "Come on"); finding the perfect, self-renewing riff was.

"I could listen to that forever," I said to Bronson when he and the others finally stepped down for a break. "We'd play it forever if we were physically capable," he said. The bandstand is empty now, but a 50-minute edit of the number will be running in the air above it, over and over, through Sept. 17.

posted by maudlin at 6:41 PM on January 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

I feel like I just slipped into a parallel but slightly different universe because I have NEVER heard that song before. And in 1971, when it first came out, I was 15-going-on-16 and totally connected to the Pop Music scene... so I googled up the Billboard Top 100 songs of 1971... and I recall everything there... "Joy to the World", check. "Maggy May", check... "Knock Three Times", regrettably check... "Want Ads", "Do You Know What I Mean", "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey", "Signs", check, check, check and check... BOTH songs titled "Superstar", check... "Chick-a-Boom" by Daddy Dewdrop, HELL yeah... "Don't Pull Your Love", heh, heh, heh... "Mr. Bojangles", "Proud Mary" by Ike & Tina, "If" by Bread, "Won't Get Fooled Again", "Timothy", "Theme from 'Shaft'", Perry Como's "That's FREAKING Impossible", I remember them all, but NOT "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep"!!! Now some major pop hits those days were more 'regional' hits, so MAYBE it never hit the L.A. airwaves. Fortunately the web has a complete listing of the "Boss 30" surveys of KHJ, the dominant radio station of the era, and sure enough, THEY NEVER PLAYED IT. Weird. But I remember some other songs from that era that KHJ never played... why haven't I heard ANY of the versions of "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep"?!? AM I GETTING OBSESSED OVER THIS?
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:42 PM on January 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hmm, I see that it was preceded on the charts by "Knock Three Times" by Dawn and followed by "Bang a Gong" by T. Rex. I don't remember 1971 as being a golden age of music, but I guess it was.
posted by Faze at 6:45 PM on January 18, 2011

Grr! Sorry, I screwed up the Greil Marcus link above: it should go here.
posted by maudlin at 6:46 PM on January 18, 2011

There is also a version from a Korean children's choir called The Little Angels mentioned here but unfortunately the links are dead.
posted by puny human at 7:43 PM on January 18, 2011

After reading this factoid in the wiki article -- "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" is a song recorded in early 1971 by its composer Lally Stott,[1] and made popular later that year by Scottish band Middle of the Road for whom it was a UK number one chart hit.[2] That version is one of the fewer than thirty all-time singles to have sold 10 million (or more) copies worldwide -- I checked the wiki on Lally Stott, thinking he must be richer than Croesus from the royalties, and read this -- Stott was killed in an accident in 1977 while riding a Harley Davidson which he allegedly purchased using profits from Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep -- sad.
posted by puny human at 7:52 PM on January 18, 2011

I just noticed the 'earworm' tag. It's much better to have this song stuck in your head than 'Disco Inferno'.

Believe me.
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 7:56 PM on January 18, 2011

Kronos_to_Earth: "It's much better to have this song stuck in your head than 'Disco Inferno'."

ARGH! You bastard!

::runs off for some more Lush::
posted by maudlin at 8:01 PM on January 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hmm, I see that it was preceded on the charts by "Knock Three Times" by Dawn and followed by "Bang a Gong" by T. Rex. I don't remember 1971 as being a golden age of music, but I guess it was.

"...Knock Three Times" by Dawn and followed by "Bang a Gong" by T. Rex. I don't remember 1971 as being a golden age of music....

"...Knock Three Times" by Dawn...golden age of music...

wut?
posted by sourwookie at 8:14 PM on January 18, 2011

I keed, I keed. Plenty in my music collection to hate, trust me.
posted by sourwookie at 8:17 PM on January 18, 2011

Uh... Lally Stott? I thought you said Wally Stott? You know, Scott Walker's string arranger.
posted by ovvl at 8:42 PM on January 18, 2011

I like the Denim version of this song too (wait till the chorus)
posted by rongorongo at 12:47 AM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

Has the song got a meaning ? As a young boy I found it deeply troubling.

Also, thanks for all the Lush stuff, Maudlin.
posted by devious truculent and unreliable at 5:48 AM on January 19, 2011

The original Lally Stott version is great! I was only familiar with the Lush version - the chord changes are tailor made for them. Today's going to be a Lush day for sure. I miss them.
posted by schoolgirl report at 6:00 AM on January 19, 2011

related, but please don't kill me

The Krankies - Fan-Dabi-Dozi

The Krankies - Wee Jimmy Krankie
posted by puny human at 11:53 AM on January 23, 2011