Please read the following and select the posted instructions as appropriate.
I realize that if I continue past this page that I might possibly, perhaps, and maybe will find something that might offend the sensibilities of maidenly aunts, dainty women, and delicate men. Therefore if I am offended and so show my own lack of sophistication, tolerance, and belief in the right of people to read and learn what they will, then that's just tough tiddy.
The Songs of Oscar Brand
Truly American Tunes from the Folk Singer Without Peer!
Oscar Brand
Songs Not for the Fainthearted
We're the finest f------ family in the land!
We're the finest f------ family in the land!
--- excerpt "The Finest F------ Family"
Well, even preceded by the disclaimer page for CooperToons Knowledge for the Politically Incorrect, there are still bounds of decorum that a family website must follow. But fortunately as a scholar and artist, Oscar was never beholden to such petty boundaries, and his albums of bawdy songs have to rank among the finest every sung.
Now many of the songs, such as "The Finest F------ Family", are indeed not for the fainthearted. At first glance, though, the first verse of "The Finest F------ Family" seems quiet mild:
There's a gentleman's convenience in the north of Waterloo
And another for their ladies further down
For a penny on deposit, you can hire a watercloset
But a season ticket costs you half a crown.
But rest assured, it goes downhill rapidly from there - or uphill depending on your point of view. True, some of the more outspoken verses might cause a blush to touch the cheeks of a maidenly aunt, unless she were a sophisticated maidenly aunt, that is. Take, for example, "Turalai":
The sexual life of the camel
Is not quite what everyone thinks.
One night in an excess of passion.
He tried to deflower the sphinx.
Singing turalai, uralai, uralai,
Turalai, uralai-ay.
Singing turalai, uralai, uralai,
Turalai, uralai-yay.
Further experimentation
Has incontrovertably shown
That comparative safety on shipboard
Is enjoyed by the hedgehog alone.
The discerning reader might deduce the source of "Turalai" and correctly conclude the best of Oscar's bawdy tunes are without doubt his military songs. Of them all, "Frig the Flying Fortress" hits the perfect balance of having a catchy tune (which discerning ears will recognize as Stephen Foster's "Glendy Burke") blended with the patriotic yet thumb-the-nose lyrics of the World War II airmen.
The captain sets upon the left
He flies the Fort with ease.
But he hands it to the copilot
When we're heading for the trees.
Frig the Flying Fortress
And pray that she'll abort.
We'd rather be at home
Than in the friggin' Flying Fort.
Then pity the poor tail gunner
For his face is very sparse,
And when the landing gear retracts
He gets it up the arse.
Frig the Flying Fortress
And pray that she'll abort.
We'd rather be at home
Than in the friggin' Flying Fort.
Oscar's air force albums "Wild Blue Younder" and followed by "Out of the Blue" were not his first bawdy albums, but they cemented his reputation as a master of the genre. The albums were produced by a reasonably mainstream producer who, when Oscar asked if they should censor the lyrics, said no. Make them honest. Although any concern is laughable by today's standards, this was the time a mild "damn" in public could get you fined or arrested and get a kid expelled from school.
Some of the soldier songs were in oral circulation around the air bases; others were original works suitable to be sung with equal gusto.
Oh, that in flight refueling!
Don't leave much time for fooling!
The bastard won't fly
If the tanks they run dry.
We depend on that in flight refueling.
Oscar started recording his bawdy ballads in 1949 and kept on for nearly 70 years. They are (at least in part) Bawdy Songs & Backroom Ballads (Volumes 1 - 4), G.I. American Army Songs, Bawdy Sea Shanties, Rollicking Sea Shanties, Bawdy Hootenanny, Bawdy Songs Goes to College, Sing-Along Bawdy Songs, The Wild Blue Yonder, Bawdy Western Songs, The Best of Bawdy Songs, Oscar Brand Sings for Adults, Brand X, and Bawdy Songs Rides Again. We must add these are only a small portion of Oscar's output, and the majority of his albums contain more or less traditional, but no less distinguished, fare.
Oh, yes. In addition to writing and singing, Oscar had been a continual presence in radio since 1945, picking up two Peabody Awards. Sadly Oscar died, on September 30, 2016.
References
"Out of the Blue", John Starr, Air and Space/Smithsonian Magazine, November 1997./p>
The story of Oscar's Air Force songs written by the son of one Oscar's first source.