I was about eleven years old when I recall hearing my first “novelty” song”

The Flying Saucer sold over a million copies, and rose to the #3 position on Billboard rankings for 1956. It was the very first of what would be called a “mashup” recording today. It’s novelty made it very popular, and it was constantly being played on the radio. This tune opened up the floodgates for a tsunami of strange and weird songs. Continuing the space theme was The Purple People Eater:

Just a few years later (1962) a Halloween novelty song was introduced that we still hear over fifty years later. Here’s Bobby Pickett appearing on American Bandstand:

To get a sense of how times have changed since then, watch Ray Stevens sing about  Ahab the Arab (1962)

Everything is so serious these days, we seem to take too little time to just chill. Sometimes I just like hearing  a silly song:

Finally, one that I’ve never grown tired of. Warren Zevon at his best: