I was never a record collector. I'm still not. I just accumulate this junk. However, I did start digging records at an early age. While the grown-ups were in the living room getting sloshed to Allan Sherman and Broadway show tune LPs, I was holed up in the bedroom, barely out of the crib and spinning my favorite 78s ad nauseam. It was the dawn of my existence and already there was some useless flotsam that I was obsessing over. One of the flotsams in question was a Clancy Brothers LP that made me lose it every time. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem: A Spontaneous Performance Recording! Oh man, did that float my toy boat. I quickly wore out the grooves on the first track on Side B--a cut called Tim Finnegan's Wake. It was all about this guy that was so drunk that his pals thought that he was dead and at his wake he sat up and asked for more booze. Don't know why this tale resonated so strongly with me, but I needed to hear that Clancys number at least fifty times a day. Even at two years of age, the hereafter via a dumb novelty song weighed heavily upon my soft baby head.
For reasons unknown, I was also enamored with a live Pete Seeger LP. It was an ugly looking Folkways record, abysmally recorded in a dank MacDougal Street club. It was OK, but no Tim Finnegan's Wake. I would have more run-ins with Mr. Seeger in the following years--tossing my cookies on his boat on a sixth grade field trip and more notably, decades later standing in line behind him in a sleazy Times Square bodega. Pete impressed the locals when he approached the counter and betraying an unbridled enthusiasm, loudly chirped out his order: "I'll Have A Slice of Banana Bread and a Gooooooolden Delicious Apple!!" While his plinkety-plunk banjo music does nothing for me now, I gotta admit that he's a swell guy and anyone who's that happy in a bodega deserves to live forever.
I don't know why they were still selling 78s in the sixties but I guess because of squirts like me there was a market for them. In step with his insidious scheme, Walt Disney secured a lock on the Peter Pan kiddie record racket and he pimped out his insipid mess to pee-wee's everywhere. My bag at the time was sitting in a large cardboard box and watching the Mickey Mouse Club, so the Disney people definitely had my number. Subsequently, a couple of songs from Dumbo the motion picture grabbed my attention and a disturbing tale about a little red schoolhouse had me appropriately terrified of the first grade. Not sure if Disney had anything to do with this, but the Peter Pan 78 Squee Gee (The Happy Little Clown) found its way into my record collection. It wasn't long before Squee Gee and his idiotic theme song solidly possessed all the chambers of my fragile, unblemished coconut. Allegedly flitting about like a careless ne'er do-well, the enigmatic Squee Gee was ascribed the ability to make each day a holiday and I wasn't the doubting type. Squee Gee had his line of jive down tight and who was I to question his upside-down pinwheeled logic? They were starting early--these messianic Manson wannabes in their clown whites and ice cream cone hats. I inspected the grooves of the record and spun it incessantly. That's when I knew that I would either have to kill Squee Gee or be Squee Gee.
Squee Gee (The Happy Little Clown) mp3
Give a Little Whistle mp3
When I See An Elephant Fly mp3
In the Little Red Schoolhouse mp3
Wow, that Squee Gee story was amazing. I usually lurk but I had to applaud you ahaha
Posted by: Jorge | October 29, 2008 at 06:00 AM
great blog dave!
Posted by: Chester | October 29, 2008 at 07:52 AM
look at the love scrawled all over that thing
Posted by: trav | October 29, 2008 at 09:50 AM
Who shoots up?
And goes downtown,
Wipes car windows with a happy frown,
beats it when the cops come around,
Sqwee Gee the happy clown!
Posted by: K | October 29, 2008 at 02:14 PM
man, as soon as they sang 'his hair is green....' i realized with the crackle and hiss that it would make a perfect dark humor track to play in the background of some crazy, creepy Joker warehouse hostage torture scene...oh well, we'll never get the chance.
Posted by: zom | October 29, 2008 at 05:31 PM
Nice posting! I, too can remember the weird fascination that certain 'adult' records around the house had for me, 'adult' as in lps that you wouldn't think a kid would be drawn to. And many of mine were as dumb as yours, the allure of the appearance, texture and smell of records in those days is hard to describe now!
It's funny, as always, to hear someone going on about a song like this---I have it in a later lp-repackaging (but still very old) kid's record, and indeed it is a standout cut on that lp, and grabbed my attention right away with the "Here's material worth DJing!" alarm. If you need a cleaner copy, I'll digitize it for ya sometime, lol.
Posted by: Mindwrecker | November 03, 2008 at 10:42 AM
Nice posting! I, too can remember the weird fascination that certain 'adult' records around the house had for me, 'adult' as in lps that you wouldn't think a kid would be drawn to. And many of mine were as dumb as yours, the allure of the appearance, texture and smell of records in those days is hard to describe now!
It's funny, as always, to hear someone going on about a song like this---I have it in a later lp-repackaging (but still very old) kid's record, and indeed it is a standout cut on that lp, and grabbed my attention right away with the "Here's material worth DJing!" alarm. If you need a cleaner copy, I'll digitize it for ya sometime, lol.
Posted by: Mindwrecker | November 03, 2008 at 10:43 AM
Nice posting! I, too can remember the weird fascination that certain 'adult' records around the house had for me, 'adult' as in lps that you wouldn't think a kid would be drawn to. And many of mine were as dumb as yours, the allure of the appearance, texture and smell of records in those days is hard to describe now!
It's funny, as always, to hear someone going on about a song like this---I have it in a later lp-repackaging (but still very old) kid's record, and indeed it is a standout cut on that lp, and grabbed my attention right away with the "Here's material worth DJing!" alarm. If you need a cleaner copy, I'll digitize it for ya sometime, lol.
Posted by: Mindwrecker | November 03, 2008 at 10:43 AM
For some reason, "In the Little Red Schoolhouse" started playing in my mind this evening as I was unloading the dishwasher and it was going to drive me crazy if I didn't hear the song again. Thank goodness I found your site....I'm pretty darn sure this was the exact version I grew up listening to as I'm a child of the 60's...Thanks for the mp3!
Posted by: Terry Miller | November 13, 2008 at 07:31 PM
What year did Squee-Gee come out?
Posted by: Marianne | February 02, 2009 at 02:25 PM
Until I found this website, my husband was convinced that I made up Squee Gee!
Ok .. so I made up a lot of the words .. because it was a long time ago since I used to play it ... but no doubt I didnt make up Squee Gee.
I friggin love the internet.
Thank you for bringing back a very whimsical part of my childhood!
Posted by: Sharon | July 06, 2009 at 04:52 PM
My sister and I had about 100 peter pan records and used to play top 10. Like our older sister's Dick Clark. Squee Gee (the happy little clown) was number 1 for many a week on our charts. Did'nt think I'd ever hear it again. Yea I'm 60... and yippie for todays tecnology.
Posted by: kevin | April 04, 2010 at 02:45 PM