365 Days #8 - Lynn Roberts - Chicken Fat (mp3s)

MP3:
A Chicken Fat (2:11)
B Chicken Fat (Instrumental) (2:13)

Welcome to the world of Chicken Fat.  Here is a later version from the 1980s made for educational exercise activities. You can hear the original song on the previous incarnation of 365 Days here (drop down the page to October 3 #276).

- Contributed by: Arlo Schultz

Images: Side A, Side B

Media: 45rpm 7" Single
Label: Kimbo Records
Catalog: 209
Credits: Meredith Wilson

Comments

[rocketboy]

Dang! I've got that record! It's not from the '80s, though. I'm thinking mid sixties or thereabouts.

[Björn]

Oh, please, please, please make it so that the track of the 1st of November of the first 365 days (Los Cuatro Amigos en el Espacio - Trácate) comes back. I want it so much. :(

[WmMBerger]

Ah, so many memories of grade school gym. All of them bad. "Nuts to the flabby guys!" Our version was by Robert Preston.

[Suzanne]

Bjorn - All of the 2003 files are still downloadable. Just click on the MP3 icon next to the notes for each song.

Go here for Tracate: http://www.wfmu.org/365/11-1.html

Robert Preston's Chicken Fat (scroll down to Oct. 3): http://www.wfmu.org/365/10-1.html

[Karl]

Oh my god! They played that song at my 4-H camp in central Indiana. Everyone hated it, as you could imagine. Eventually, some friends of mine kidnapped the record. The kidnappers left a note, but were thwarted when the ransom was faked. In the end, they got the record back and played it almost continually for the rest of camp. For years we wished we had destroyed it when we had the chance. The song is still etched deep in my brain.

[Björn]

Suzanne, can you actually download that track? I am getting a 404 error.

[lee]

i asked my farmy friend what 4-H stands for and she said 'heterosexual horse hnd-jb hourly. i thought that you would like that, Karl.

[Karl]

Lee, you thought I would enjoy that, and you were SOOOOO right! I just wish I had known that back then.

[Mimi]

We had this in my elementary school gym class every week - it's been resounding in my head ever since, and I'm 34 now! I can't believe someone actually found this record...

[Tom]

OMG! What memories from K-5 Highland Elementary in Camp Hill, PA. Did the 6 min. version daily after morning announcements, National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance. Just learned the story that Pres. Kennedy commissioned the recording, but that song has never left my head after 40 years! If only I could actually make that chicken fat go away...

[Sara]

I've got an mp3 of it from Napster days.
We used it in gym class in the early 80s.
My version is clearly performed by The Music Man himself, Robert Preston.

[Max]

You guys were lucky all you got was a record, me being of the newer generation of victims received a mind numbingly cheesy half-hour VHS version. KIMBO is still around apparently! http://www.kimboed.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=14 (The video was produced in the early 90's...apparently it's still popular enough to warrant a DVD rerelease!)

[Jim]

To Bjorn:

You wrote of for what you heard "The 4-H Club" stood. Here's what I heard--

During the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the mid 1980s, it was said that HIV+ persons belonged to "The 4-H Club," which stood for "homosexuals, Haitians, hemophilliacs and heroin addicts," because those were the sub-groups who were statistically at high risk to contract the virus (HIV) that causes AIDS.

Since then, now that the nation's blood supply is screened, hemophilliacs or "bleeders" are no longer in the club, nor are Haitians. Of course, careless junkies who share and/or don't use sterile needles may still become infected.

And, although after the first generation of gay men that died from HIV-related diseases, the numbers of homosexual men acquiring the virus were going down for years (due to safer sex practices), those numbers are going up again due to such careless behaviors as having sex while using crystal meth, and a suicidal practice called "barebacking."

I was the lead singer/songwriter of a garage/punk band in Boston that used to do kinky parodies (kind of like R-rated "Weird Al" numbers), and I wrote & performed my first one before "Weird Al" did his "My Bologna" to the tune of "My Sharona." But anyway, one tune we did was called "Secret Haitian Man" (to the tune of Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Men"), and besides being humorous (and offensive--which was, frankly, a kick in itself!), our version or "perversion" of that great old rock anthem served the additional purpose of getting people to think about AIDS. So even though we were called racist, homophobic, etc. by some for doing that parody, as far as I'm concerned, if it shook one person up enough to get him to think about his behavior and be more responsible with sex partners, drug use, etc., then it was worth it!

So maybe it's only "The 1-H Club" now, because a whole new generation of young guys were either not yet born or too young to have been close to someone who died of AIDS-related diseases. Let's hope it doesn't take another epidemic to shake them all into being careful and considerate. Wise up, young men!

[Mark Zellers]

I remember "Chicken Fat" from when I was in 3rd grade in Webster Groves, Mo. c. 1966. They played this song at the beginning of every gym class. I was having trouble keeping up with the record, so I remember getting my mom to buy a copy of the single, but then found it was *not* the same one they were playing at school. My guess is that the school had the Robert Preston version, while the single we got was this one, but I can't be sure.

P.S. I found your blog via a mention on a web page I found in Robert Preston's article on Wikipedia (pointing to an MP3 of Chicken Fat). The author of that web page was afraid that the 365 days project was about to go away and wanted to save Chicken Fat before it disappeared.

[Nancy]

I worked out to this record in first grade around 1970.

[000-100 exam]

Great P.S. I found your blog via a mention on a web page I found in Robert 640-553 exam
Preston's article on Wikipedia (pointing to an MP3 of Chicken Fat). The author of that web page was afraid that the 365 640-816 exam
days project was about to go away and wanted to save Chicken Fat before it disappeared.650-393 exam

[Cheryl]

My Dad was a principal at a grammar school in the late l960 & early l970. He must of recieve multiple copies of "Chicken Fat" records from the promoters. I still have the 45 records.

My Dad use to have my sister, brother and I do "Chicken Fat" exercises before we went to school every morning. I was wondering where he got these records and now I have found out the answer. We great memories...