Off Beat

Today we begin a new feature that, with luck, will appear regularly each Saturday. The title doesn't refer to syncopation but rather silly, novelty or off beat songs. Many of these songs I grew up with in the 50s and 60s. Of course I was just knee-high to a grasshopper in the 50s you understand but many of these songs ran on the radio in those days and helped get me hooked on music.

Our first selection comes from the height of the cold war and the height of the sci-fi craze of the 50s. In 1958 Sheb Wooley capitalized on when our imaginations were piqued by movies about aliens and UFO's with The Purple People Eater...