Sunday, November 2, 2008

Silly Songs: Don't You Just Know It



Huey "Piano" Smith & His Clowns: Don't You Just Know It

[purchase]


For this music lover, the hands down king of silly songs has to be Huey "Piano" Smith. My mom tells me that when I was a wee lad, whenever Don't You Just Know It would come on the radio, I would jump up and down with excitement, doing the Curly Shuffle in my crib. To this day, the song still has a visceral effect on me - I find myself transfixed, drawn in on an elemental level to the outright silliness of it.

When Rock and Roll first started, it was filed under record shops' "Novelty" section - and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The very core of Rock should be, to paraphrase David Lynch, "Wild at heart and weird on top". This is what connects artists as diverse as Devo to Little Richard; listen to Keep A Knockin' and contrast it with Come Back Jonee - both are full of joy, outrageousness and unbridled energy. Huey manages to infuse those same three fundamentals into Don't You Just Know It.

No matter what music genre you're a fan of, you should be able to enjoy the sheer exuberant silliness of Huey "Piano" Smith and his Clowns. And because there's never enough absurdity in this world of ours, here's some yockomo to go with the kuba kuba kuba kuba.


Huey "Piano" Smith & His Clowns: Don't You Know Yockomo

[purchase]

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