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"Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)" | ||||
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Single by Benny Hill | ||||
from the album Words and Music | ||||
B-side | "Ting-A-Ling-A-Loo" | |||
Released | 1971 | |||
Recorded | Abbey Road Studios, London | |||
Genre | Novelty | |||
Length | 3:52 | |||
Label | Columbia | |||
Songwriter(s) | Benny Hill | |||
Producer(s) | Walter J. Ridley | |||
Benny Hill singles chronology | ||||
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"Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)" is an innuendo-laden comedy or novelty song, written and performed by the English comedian Benny Hill. The song was first performed on television in 1970, and released as a successful recording, topping the UK Singles Chart in December 1971, [1] reaching the Christmas number one spot. The song also peaked at number 1 in Australia in February 1972. [2] Hill received an Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in 1972.
The single's B-side, "Ting-A-Ling-A-Loo", is a music hall parody. [3] Hill later suggested that the melody of "Ting-A-Ling-A-Loo" had been largely plagiarised in the Spitting Image 1986 hit song "The Chicken Song". [4] [5]
The lyric's story line is inspired by Hill's early experience as a milkman for Hann's Dairies in Eastleigh, Hampshire. Market Street, mentioned in the lyrics, is a real-life street in Eastleigh. The song tells the fictional exploits of Ernie Price, a 52-year-old (68, in the original television version) milkman who drives a horse-drawn milk cart. It relates his feud with the bread delivery man ("Two-Ton Ted" from Teddington) and their efforts to win the heart of Sue, a widow who lives alone at No. 22, Linley Lane.
When Ted sees Ernie's cart outside Sue's house all afternoon, he becomes enraged and violently kicks Price's horse, Trigger. The two men resort to a duel, using the wares they carry on their respective carts for weapons, and Ernie is killed by a rock cake underneath his heart, followed by a stale pork pie in his eye; in the original television version it was a fresh meat pie.
Sue and Ted then marry, but sounds outside their bedroom make them wonder if Ernie's ghost has returned to haunt them on their wedding night.
"Ernie" was originally written in 1955 as the introduction to an unfilmed screenplay about Hill's milkman experiences.
The song's content and style parody popular cowboy-story American country songs such as the 1966 Frank Gallop US hit "The Ballad of Irving". [ citation needed ] "The Ballad of Irving" was itself inspired by Lorne Greene's song "Ringo" from 1964, which had the same style and structure.
Hill performed the song on The Benny Hill Show in 1970. The original clip is seldom repeated as it was made in black and white owing to a technicians' strike, but the episode has been released on DVD, in both the United Kingdom and United States.
The following year, it was included with minor lyrical revisions on Hill's album Words and Music. When it was released as a single on EMI's Columbia label, it became a surprise number-one hit, topping the UK Singles Chart for four weeks at Christmas 1971. [1] A promotional film, starring Hill as Ernie, Henry McGee as Ted, and Jan Butlin as Sue, was filmed in Vicarage Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire.[ citation needed ]
Hill re-recorded the song, shortly before his death in 1992, for the album Benny Hill... The Best Of.[ citation needed ]
On Desert Island Discs in May 2006, Conservative Party leader, later Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron picked it as one of his eight favourite records. [6]
Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill was an English comedian, actor, and scriptwriter. He is remembered for his television programme, The Benny Hill Show, an amalgam of slapstick, burlesque and double entendre in a format that included live comedy and filmed segments, with Hill at the focus of almost every segment.
A novelty song is a type of song built upon some form of novel concept, such as a gimmick, a piece of humor, or a sample of popular culture. Novelty songs partially overlap with comedy songs, which are more explicitly based on humor, and with musical parody, especially when the novel gimmick is another popular song. Novelty songs achieved great popularity during the 1920s and 1930s. They had a resurgence of interest in the 1950s and 1960s. The term arose in Tin Pan Alley to describe one of the major divisions of popular music; the other two divisions were ballads and dance music. Humorous songs, or those containing humorous elements, are not necessarily novelty songs.
Eastleigh is a town in Hampshire, England, between Southampton and Winchester. It is the largest town and the administrative seat of the Borough of Eastleigh, with a population of 24,011 at the 2011 census.
Milk delivery is a delivery service dedicated to supplying milk, typically in bottles or cartons, to customers' homes. This service is performed by a milkman, milkwoman, or milk deliverer. The delivery route is a milk route or milk run.
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"Baby I Need Your Loving" is a 1964 hit single recorded by the Four Tops for the Motown label. Written and produced by Motown's main production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song was the group's first Motown single and their first pop Top 20 hit, making it to number 11 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number four in Canada in the fall of 1964. It was also their first million-selling hit single.
In English-speaking culture, a milkman joke is a joke cycle exploiting fear of adultery and mistaken paternity, insinuating that a woman had cheated on her husband with the milkman.
"Who's Sorry Now?" is a popular song with music written by Ted Snyder and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. It was published in 1923 as a waltz. Isham Jones had a hit recording in 1923 with the song arranged as a foxtrot. Later sheet music arrangements, such as the 1946 publication that was a tie-in to the film A Night in Casablanca, were published in 2
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The Benny Hill Show is a British comedy television show starring Benny Hill that aired on the BBC and ITV between 15 January 1955 and 1 May 1989. The show consisted mainly of sketches typified by slapstick, mime, parody, and double entendre.
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Idol on Parade is a 1959 British comedy film directed by John Gilling and starring William Bendix, Anthony Newley, Sid James and Lionel Jeffries. The screenplay was by John Antrobus, based on the 1958 William Camp novel Idle on Parade which was inspired by Elvis Presley's conscription into the US Army. It was produced by Irving Allen and Albert R. Broccoli for Warwick Films. Jeep Jackson serves his two years of compulsory National Service in the British military.
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