Sink the Bismarck by Johnny Horton

Sink The Bismarck - Johnny Horton - YouTube

With guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees.

 

>With guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees. <

One would think that it would be the guns as big as trees, and shells as big as steers!

 

Of course it was the rhyming not the accuracy of weapon size that dictated the line. I still liked Johnny Horton, even his Battle of New Orleans was false in almost every aspect, but still fun to listen to.

 

Yeah, somehow stuff his head with cannon balls and powder his behind seemed less than effective. Even to a pre-teen when the song came out that was obviously goofy, and yet I loved the dang song.

 

When I first heard the Battle of New Orleans on the radio, my younger brother was still in diapers. That explains why I was really confused when I heard the phrase "powder his behind". And, no, it did not occur to me to try putting a cannon ball in my brother's mouth. More recently? Maybe, but not back then.

 

It's still terrific. Both songs. I play Battle of New Orleans at the pub from time to time. I need to try it when an Englishman is around.

 

Or when the US Senate ratified the treaty months after the British had lost the Battle of New Orleans at the earliest, and then perhaps exchanged signed and ratified copies between governments.

 

According to John Landis...the Blues Brothers original full-length shoot included a THIRD song in "Bob's Country Bunker"...their version of Sink The Bismarck, in addition to Rawhide and Stand By Your Man.

Unfortunately - when the film was pruned down in the editing suite, it was discarded; a few years back, when Landis re-edited back in as much of the discarded footage as he could find for a release of the "full length" version on DVD, he was unable to turn this up

 

Johnny Horton was very popular in his time, I don't know how many of his own songs he wrote but one of them was turned into a pretty good film for John Wayne to star in, North to Alaska. That is right, the song was written and then the film was made to "flesh out the story" of the song.

Goto:

Johnny Horton - North To Alaska (Original Stereo) - YouTube

 

... it's all about what the people buy.

Horton's "Battle of New Orleans" charted #1 on US charts, and strangely made it to #16 in the UK. You'd think Horton's "Sink the Bismarck" would go straight to #1 UK, but it didn't chart. Hmmmm, nefarious deeds were afoot (did I really say that?). Horton's song didn't have a chance because it was recorded by UK act "Don Lang and the Frantic Five" shortly after release in the US, and was released in the UK. Lang and gang had done this before, and had achieved success in the UK by recording US hits, but his version of Horton's hit didn't even make the UK top 40!

 

There was a UK version, which was "slightly different", which just goes to show that a recording artist will do anything to make a buck.

Goto:

Johnny Horton-The Battle of New Orleans (BRITISH VERSION!!) - YouTube

 

If you don't remember Foster Brooks, you really should open up some of the sidebars with him. His "drunk" made Dean Martin look like a member of AA.

Goto:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIEmOOt_e4Q&feature=related

 

Did someone mention the Blues Brothers???
Blues Brothers - Sink The Bismarck (RARE!!!) - YouTube


But for all of Johnny Horten's success with "Sink The Bismarck", IMHO Homer & Jethro got much more mileage out of the tune with

"The Battle of Kookamunga"
Homer and Jethro - The Battle of Kookamonga - YouTube

and, of course, my favorite...
"We Didn't Sink the Bismarck"
Homer and Jethro We Didn't Sink the Bismark - YouTube
Way back in nineteen-forty-two or maybe forty-three,
I sailed with Captain Tuna, the chicken of the sea.
We didn't sink the Bismarck , no matter what they say,
For when we seen the German ships, we sailed the other way.

We seen torpedos comin' and we saw a periscope.
We were full of fightin' spirit and our souls were full o' hope.
The captain yelled, "Now hear this!" He really flipped his lid.
We haven't yet begun to fight. What's more, we never did.

Oh, we didn't sink the Bismarck and we didn't fight at all.
We spend our time in Norfolk and we really had a ball,
Chasin' after women while our ship was overhauled,
A-livin' it up on grapefruit juice and sickbay alcohol.


Then they made me a frogman on the demolition team.
I sunk a battleship, a cruiser, and a submarine.
I blew up ammunition dumps. I did my best to please.
I did it all before the Navy sent me overseas.


Tony, our Italian cook, was a-settin' on the deck,
And we were a-peelin' 'taters. We must 'a' peeled a peck.
The captain yelled, "Hey, Tony! Is that a U-boat I see?"
Tony says, "It's not-a my boat; it's-a no belong to me."


Oh, we didn't sink the Bismarck and we didn't fight at all.
We spend our time in Norfolk and we really had a ball,
Chasin' after women while our ship was overhauled,
A-livin' it up on grapefruit juice and sickbay alcohol.


And now the war is over and our story can be told
About our captain's fightin' and the young ones and the old.
We stayed in San Francisco , away from the battle scenes.
We spent our time on Treasure Island a-fightin' the Marines.


Oh, we didn't sink the Bismarck and we didn't fight at all.
We spend our time in Norfolk and we really had a ball,
Chasin' after women while our ship was overhauled,
A-livin' it up on grapefruit juice and sickbay alcohol.

 

When I last saw a re-run of the movie (Bismark) I was wanting to hear that song again. However, I was disappointed since it was the UK version with different theme music. As far as the song, "Battle of New Orleans" goes, this was back in the day where humorous songs were quite common.

 

Alan Sherman was hilarious, and well liked by all in the sixties.

Goto:

Camp Granada by Allan Sherman (with lyrics) - YouTube