album challenge day 7: allan sherman

I didn't really "get" the humor of Allan Sherman's music when I heard it as a kid. Which kind of makes it odd that I liked it so much. He wasn't a particularly good singer, but the humor was the main attraction.

But, despite my missing the point, I used to listen to this. Over and over and over again. And it became part of the soundtrack of my childhood. I remember those summers at sleepaway camp, when I was absolutely obsessed with Allan Sherman. I was quite the annoying pest back then.* I'd be singing his songs at any opportunity. And, I'll tell you, I sang worse then than I do now.

For the uninitiated, Allan Sherman was a comedy writer who turned his attention to humorous songs. Mostly parodies. In a sense he was the Weird Al Yankovic of his day. But there are two major differences:

• Weird Al parodies records. His recordings are meant to sound like the originals. Allan Sherman just parodied songs. And many of his parodies were of older traditional songs of which there isn;t even one definitive recording anyway. As an example, his first album included "Sir Greenbaum's Madrigal, which was a sendup of "Greensleeves."
• Allan Sherman's humor was distinctly ethnic. Specifically Jewish. In "My Zelda" (a parody of "Matilda") he bemoans that he hasn't "seen her since Tisha B'av." And the Jewish jokes aren't just in the references. There's also Yiddish phraseology. In "The Streets of Miami" (a parody of "The Streets of Laredo") he recalls that "I shot and Sam crumbled just like a piece halvah."

In one sense, I think of Allan Sherman and Tom Lehrer as occupying a similar space, since they both performed humorous songs at roughly the same time. But Lehrer's humor was more in the realm of biting satire, and he didn't parody existing songs. They were both good, but for some reason Lehrer never worked hisway into my childmind the same way.

I remember reading the reviews from other comedians that comprised the liner notes, and begging my father to buy these other records. For some reason I didn't realize that these were positive comments about the record I had (as opposed to descriptions of other records).

And for years -- decades, actually -- I was still picking up on jokes that I had previously missed.

Years later I bought my own used copy. And then used copies of the followup albums, My Son, the Celebrity, and My Son the Nut. They were good, but not as good as the first. Now, of course, my collection is largely complete, as I have My Son, the Box, a six-disc box set covering most of his career. There are some odds and ends that aren't on it, but...whatever.

The jokes are corny, but I love them.

For years -- decades, in fact -- I was still catching jokes that I had previously missed. 

*Yeah, yeah...Ha ha. Oh, shut up.