You're such a silly woman!!!

July 1, 2020 2:22 PM

Fred Schneider (of the B-52's) sings Lime in the Coconut on Conan O'Brien, 1995

What? You clicked for more lime in coconut madness? Fine.

Here is Harry Nilsson's original
Here's Harry Belafonte singing it with Flip Wilson (okay, with Geraldine)
Here's Kermit the Frog's take
Here's the original again, plus dancing practical witches
How about a sad TV funeral version?
And the Chipmunk treatment you never realized you needed.

Bonus Chidi

posted by Mchelly (32 comments total)

That solo record he made was awesome.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:27 PM on July 1, 2020 [6 favorites]

OMG that Lime in the Coconut performance is exactly the kind of obscure mid-90s I crave at all times. God bless this content and bless this day
posted by billjings at 2:47 PM on July 1, 2020 [7 favorites]

It's also Fred's birthday today.

Yeah, that Steve Albini-produced album is quite something. Not good, exactly, but something. I'm much more about the 1984 “Fred Schneider & The Shake Society”, which I had on import vinyl and lent it to someone in 1992 and never saw again, I'm not bitter or anything.
posted by scruss at 2:55 PM on July 1, 2020 [6 favorites]

Worth it for Bonus Chidi alone.
posted by chavenet at 2:56 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

Meanwhile
Baha Men
Dr House
posted by chavenet at 3:00 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Only Fred Schneider has a Fred Schneider voice.
posted by delfin at 3:01 PM on July 1, 2020 [7 favorites]

My favourite Howard Stern interview was with Fred Schneider about a decade ago. He had no product to pimp - he was just there to shoot the shit.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 3:01 PM on July 1, 2020

For whom else has this conjured up a terrifying amalgam of Jeff Bezos, Tintin, Mark E. Smith and (thanks to Bonus Chidi) Pere Ubu's David Thomas?
posted by progosk at 3:04 PM on July 1, 2020 [6 favorites]

Unless you know it follows Nilsson's version of Without You on the album I'm not sure you quite get the full measure of either song.
posted by Grangousier at 3:10 PM on July 1, 2020 [5 favorites]

Obligatory Fred Schneider reads from Scott McClellan's memoir on the Daily Show. [Comedy Central link, possibly US-only]
posted by eugenen at 3:22 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

Furthermore
P.M. Dawn
Dannii Minogue
Sprung Monkeys
Toxic Audio
posted by progosk at 3:23 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

Gotta give a shout out to the editor of that Chidi video for making the effort to use different reaction shots in between the loops. Kudos!
posted by acidnova at 3:33 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

Only Fred Schneider has a Fred Schneider voice.

And Brad Sherwood
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:46 PM on July 1, 2020 [8 favorites]

exactly the kind of obscure mid-90s I crave at all times

If instead obscure early-80s were your bag, you'd be delighted to know the supergroups backing Fred there was Richard Barone of The Bongos (of Drums Along the Hudson, erm, fame), Tracy Wormworth (of the Waitresses) plus (I think) Russell Simins (of John Spencer Blues Explosion) and Rick Sims (of the, erm, Didijits).
posted by progosk at 3:47 PM on July 1, 2020 [6 favorites]

Wow he’s really giving me some mid-90s daddy energy
posted by Automocar at 4:11 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Don’t want to but I have to: the song is called Coconut.
posted by badbobbycase at 4:17 PM on July 1, 2020 [6 favorites]

I'm really impressed with how '90s this is. Awesome!
posted by suetanvil at 4:26 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

I had never before realized how much Schneider has in common with Mark E. Smith. Time to reevaluate that guy from the Sugarcubes...
posted by mr_roboto at 4:46 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Fred's sending me strong Cowboy Henk vibes...
posted by niicholas at 4:54 PM on July 1, 2020

And Ty Segall (from the excellent Segall Smeagol, all Nilsson covers).
posted by (parenthetic me) at 5:23 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Besides the Nilsson tribute highlighted in the video, the studio recording of "Coconut" can also be found on Just... Fred, the aforementioned Steve Albini-produced album. Which I just so happened to be listening to when stumbling across this. And yeah, it's fantastic.

Also worth a gander is Fred's... uh, suggestive track "Monster" from the also aforementioned Shake Society album.
posted by showall at 6:13 PM on July 1, 2020

Y'all, I've had this song in my head for decades and had no idea where it came from and never ever would've guessed Nilsson. I'm guessing I heard Kermit do it at some point.

Thanks so much for this!
posted by allthinky at 6:44 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

izzat leslie langston, underrated bassist from throwing muses, on bass?
posted by Zerowensboring at 6:44 PM on July 1, 2020

Fred, the Ed Wynn of rock.
posted by Droll Lord at 7:26 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

The first minute or so totally failed to live up to my imagining of it, based entirely on me thinking of his "Love Shack" vocals, but after that, it was everything I was hoping for and more!
posted by Jon Mitchell at 7:34 PM on July 1, 2020

Damn that Muppet version has... not aged well. The “witch doctor” look just isn’t a thing you can get away with any more.
posted by egypturnash at 9:13 PM on July 1, 2020

So I was hoping for more versions, but tragically there doesn't seem to be a symphonic version, nor a marching band.

So I search on [lime in the coconut weird].

Put the Lime in the Coconut But It's Been Translated 5 Times with a Bad MIDI
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 10:22 PM on July 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

In the original Nilsson recording it sure sounds like she calls up Dr. Hibbert from the Simpsons. "Now let me get this straight."
posted by St. Oops at 10:47 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]

Thanks to this thread listening to Nilsson Schmilsson again, I'm struck by the I wish that I'd discovered this when I was fifteen rather than believing in all that post-punk crap about street credibility. Also, I was wondering what a really good example of LCR mixing would sound like, and here it is, sounding really good.
posted by Grangousier at 2:25 AM on July 2, 2020

(LCR mixing means that everything is either way over to the right or left or dead centre - the mixing desks of the time only had those settings unless you wanted to patch in a device, and there was a physical limit to the number of devices a studio could own. So everything's over to right or left with the voice, the drums and the bass in the centre.

And, god, that voice...)
posted by Grangousier at 2:27 AM on July 2, 2020

When the original first came out there so many different TV variety show cover versions. It was just obligatory cheap comedic filler for the times.
posted by ovvl at 7:17 AM on July 2, 2020

→ (from the excellent Segall Smeagol, all Nilsson covers).

Yes, this, very. It's also free. Ty does some lovingly demented covers (eg: Every 1's A Winner) and Coconut is one of his best.
posted by scruss at 10:36 AM on July 2, 2020