Word(s) that only ever appeared in one (hit) song, ever.

I regret to inform you that Beyonce's "Formation" is a top 10 hit with nostrils.

Oh yeah, good catch!

Most songs just seem to use Saskatchewan as a synonym for an exotic place that's far away, like Timbuktu.

??? Any example that I can find in a quick search is by a Canadian artist and references Saskatchewan as ... a province? I lived there for two years and can assure you it's not that exotic. What did you have in mind?

I can see connotations of cold, flat, rural, traditional but not "an exotic place that's far away".

It's mentioned in a Lou Reed song too for no reason I can think of other than Lou rhyming it with "man" and "plan". No canal and no Panama though.

In "Movin' Right Along" from the Muppet Movie, Fozzie sings "Send someone to fetch us, we're in Saskatchewan" when they're driving around lost.

read that as "felch us" and got confused why they had to be in Saskatchewan for that

I stumbled on this article here:
https://thestarphoenix.com/news/saskatchewan-in-song

And I was struck by e.g. Charlotte Gainsbourg's "AF607105", with which we are all familiar because we're on Ilxor. And of course Lou Reed's "Stupid Man". On reflection most of the songs describe the place more in a "I long for my faraway homeland" sense. But are they really singing about Saskatchewan? Hmm?

It's a fascinating shape on the map. A rectangle, but with a pushed-in side - my hunch, based on no research whatsoever, is that there was a long war with Manitoba over the town of Flin Flon. It that culminated in a UN-imposed peace treaty - in French - just before Saskatchewan overtook the town. After all these years bygones have become bygones and the people have learned to live with each other.

Flin Flon is named after Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin, a fictional character from a book. He apparently "piloted a submarine into a bottomless lake where he sailed through a hole lined with gold to enter a strange underground world". Because Saskatchewan's main employers are mining companies it has a place called Uranium City:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_City

And what appeared to be Tumor Lake, but it's actually Turnor Lake and I just misread it. If Google's little yellow figure is to be believed the entire southern half of the province is a dense, regular grid of roads, just hundreds of miles of flat nothing with a grid of roads. And the top half is flat boggy swamp. From Buffy Sainte Marie's song was expecting lush rolling hills, but it looks horrible. And I'm never going to visit because I don't drive. Way to crush my dreams, Google.

Pushing the bounds of relevance here, but Mark Robinson had a band called Flin Flon whose song titles (on their first album, at least) were the names of Canadian towns.

Has "patchouli" appeared in a hit single outside of "Year of the Cat" by Al Stewart?

― henry s, Monday, October 3, 2022 5:42 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not that I could find, which is disappointing to me as a patchouli fanatic. Makes me appreciate Al Stewart even more though!

Re: "Watusi"

Would you consider The Beatles "Revolution 9" a hit song?

No

It's mentioned in a Lou Reed song too for no reason I can think of other than Lou rhyming it with "man" and "plan".

Especially lol because you have to mispronounce it for that rhyme to work

Most songs just seem to use Saskatchewan as a synonym for an exotic place that's far away, like Timbuktu.

This is how it's used in the Loud Family song "Why We Don't Live in Mauritania", but not in "Running Back to Saskatoon" by the Guess Who.

Incidentally, I see no-one has ever noticed that this thread is build on sand...

"All Summer Long", mentioned in the original post, was never a hit anywhere. It was only released as a single in the UK, and as far as I can determine never charted. So presumably the poster who started the thread wasn't hung up on chart placements as determinants for whether a song was a hit or not.

"Watusi" also in "Land of a Thousand Dances"

'rickets', 'diphtheria', 'ringworm', 'spawny-eyed', 'wazzock' - Tony Capstick's 'Capstick Comes Home'

'TK Maxx', 'semtex', 'Durex', 'Mandrax', 'Playtex', 'Asics' - Robbie Williams 'Rudebox'

maybe 'applehead' - Babybird 'The F Word'

"Watusi" also in "Land of a Thousand Dances"

And yeah, I also remember the song by The Orlons mentioned upthread.

Kashmir not really a hit tho

was gonna suggest sister thread "Word(s) that only appeared in one shit song ever" but realized it'd just become a Paul Barman thread

"camiknickers" "winklepickers" - BA Robertson's "Kool in the Kaftan" (UK #17)

Incidentally, I see no-one has ever noticed that this thread is build on sand...

"All Summer Long", mentioned in the original post, was never a hit anywhere. It was only released as a single in the UK, and as far as I can determine never charted. So presumably the poster who started the thread wasn't hung up on chart placements as determinants for whether a song was a hit or not.

― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, October 6, 2022 2:31 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Hi Dere.

Yes, seeing as I'm a UK ilxor and possibly have that single (I don't) I guess I sort of established the method d'emploi for the thread right there. Not in chart positions, but how I don't have to explain the song because we all know it, or at least 70% of us do.

(It's possibly my most successful startup here)

Right, but from that perspective "Revolution 9" and its words are certainly known by more people than, for instance, the terrible Haywire song that I mentioned upthead, which somehow made the Canadian charts. And, despite not being a hit, "All Summer Long" was used over the end credits of American Graffiti, and then featured on the very famous Beach Boys compilation Endless Summer...

...my point being that it's more fun to discuss words than chart positions, no matter how satisfying it is to mention Haywire.

"Mumps" in "Blinded By the Light" by Manfred Mann's Earth Band (or Springsteen)?

Sad to say, it's also in "Poison Ivy" as made famous by the Coasters.

OK, how about "unpleasin'" from the same song?

You might be in the clear! I thought of Eminem's "Just Lose It," but apparently that was "appeasin'."

hah, 'unsad' in A Little Time

by the Beautiful South

Long shot, but "devious" on "Sex and Candy"?

― Doctor Casino, Thursday, January 16, 2014 9:47 AM bookmarkflaglink

d'oh - it's also in "Ebeneezer Goode."

"Mister Punchinello" from Ebeneezer Goode though.

“Wedding coat” in “The River.”

"goddness" in "Venus" by Shocking Blue (because of a typo on the lyric sheet)

Another "mumps" pops up in "Peanut Butter" by The Marathons, a #20 hit in June of 1964. The liner notes to this Chess records compilation note its "hit" status and suggest it was a bit of a Coasters soundalike; perhaps the band specifically had "Poison Ivy" on the brain. (Speaking as a non-expert on the genres represented, I find this a great comp, alongside Chess's "Rock 'n' Roll" and "Rhythm & Blues" ones - one great song after another!)

Fun side story: those same liner notes also establish that the Marathons were actually The Vibrations, recording under an alias in a one-off moonlighting arrangement with another record company. After it charted, Leonard Chess (who had the Vibrations under contract) won the record and its royalties from the rival company in court.

Further online digging reveals that, complicating things further, the Vibrations were previously known as the Jay Hawks, and in that capacity were the first of a quick spree of acts to have a hit with "Stranded in the Jungle" in the mid-50s. Later, under the Vibrations moniker, they were again one of the first to score a minor hit with a "Watusi" title, before the Orlons delivered the much bigger "The Wah-Watusi." Another couple of years go by and then the Vibrations were the first act to record "My Girl Sloopy," taking it to #26 in 1964 before it went to #1 for the McCoys as "Hang on Sloopy" in 1965. The McCoys, in turn, were a group engineered out of thin air by the moderately successful Strangeloves, with the help of another band called Rick and the Raiders. Why? Well, I'm not actually clear on the legal/financial/branding logic in play, but it seems it had somehow to do with the Strangeloves already being on the charts with "I Want Candy" for some other (probably dubious) reason related to the simultaneous chart presence of the Strangeloves' "I Want Candy," which peaked at #11 but of course is now more of a footnote precursor to Bow Wow Wow's indelible cover from seventeen years later, which peaked much lower on the US charts but has become a cultural staple.

Showbiz!

My head hurt the last time I tried to think about all that stuff.

ugh that last sentence got away from me in the editing process

Can we maybe talk about "Vindicated"?

dashboard confessional vindicated lyrics https://g.co/kgs/c1GDza

"Crevice" in "Chestnut Mare" by the Byrds, which was a hit in the UK if not in the US.

He probably should have said "crevasse" there, even though that part of the song sounds like a hallucination where anything goes

Heard "Don't Sleep in the Subway" on the radio today: "wherefore."

"Wherefore art thou Romeo" in If I Only Had a Heart from The Wizard of Oz.

Probably not the only song that quotes that line, I'd imagine.

Although actually the line in "Subway" is "...whys or wherefores", so you win.

I’m quite certain "bescumber" hasn’t ever been used outside of Scott Walker's "Fetish".

Hard to walk into a CVS without hearing that one!

Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction" has "coagulatin'".

"Steed" in "Daydream Believer"?

Also, though it was by no means a hit record, the lyrics to Peter Sinfield's Still contain several words I had to look up: "woad", "cruets", "speiss" and "cochineal".

Those last four probably made an appearance in a Cocteau Twins song sometime.

I find it amazing the "prerogative" pops up in not one but two huge hits songs, at least.