Song Lyric Sunday: A Hooly-Hooly Skirt

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This week for Song Lyric Sunday I’m playing you something a little different from my usual suspects. Jim’s post Age Is A Measurement Of Time – an accurate title – tells us that our task is to play a song from the year that we were born, which as I reach 71 in a couple of weeks means that I am looking at 1953. Pop music charts here in the UK were in their infancy in those days: the first one, a Top Twelve, had been published in New Musical Express magazine – known as the NME – in late 1952, and was extended to a Top Twenty in 1954. Prior to that charts had only existed for sales of sheet music, reflecting the fact that we tended to make our own entertainment. My Mum was a very good pianist and had several boxes of sheet music beside her piano, mostly light classical and pop songs, and until my voice broke I was encouraged to use my boy treble voice to sing along with her. It all went downhill later, but before it did we had some fun with today’s first tune.

For my 60th birthday I posted a very long piece about what had happened in that year: QE2’s coronation, the first ascent to the top of Mount Everest, and all sorts of other things. I reworked this a couple of times, the most recent of these in 2019, which you can find here if you fancy a social and cultural history lesson: 1953 And All That. In that piece I included the songs that were top of the UK and US hit parades (yes, we did call it that) in the week I was born. I’m going to be playing one of those again today, as an early birthday celebration, but I’m leading with another UK #1 from that year for the same singer, Guy Mitchell. This one is a bit of fun, and is one that I remember hearing on the radio as I was growing up:

The lyrics are unlikely to win a Nobel Literature Prize but here they are anyway:

(She wears red feathers and a hooly-hooly skirt)She lives on just cokey-nuts and fish from the seaA rose in her hair, a gleam in her eyesAnd love in her heart for me
 
I work in a London bank, respectable positionFrom nine to three they serve you teaBut ruin your dispositionEach night of music calls, rather lost I seemAnd once a pearl of a native girl came smilin’ right at me
 
She wears red feathers and a hooly-hooly skirtShe wears red feathers and a hooly-hooly skirtShe lives on just cokey-nuts and fish from the seaA rose in her hair, a gleam in her eyesAnd love in her heart for me
 
Goodbye to the London bank, I started in a-sailin’The fourteenth day from Mandalay I spied her from the railin’She knew I was on my way, waited, and was trueShe said “You son of an Englishman, I’ve dreamed each night of you”
 
She wears red feathers and a hooly-hooly skirtShe wears red feathers and a hooly-hooly skirtShe lives on just cokey-nuts and fish from the seaA rose in her hair, a gleam in her eyesAnd love in her heart for me
 
I went to her Ma and Pa and said I loved her onlyAnd they both said we could be wed, oh, what a ceremonyAn elephant brought her in, placed her by my sideWhile six baboons got out bassoons and played “Here Comes the Bride”
 
I’m back here in London town and, though it may sound sillyShe’s here with me and you should see us walk down PicadillyThe boys at the London bank kinda hold their breathShe sits with me and sips her tea which tickles them to death
 
She wears red feathers and a hooly-hooly skirtShe wears red feathers and a hooly-hooly skirtShe lives on just cokey-nuts and fish from the seaA rose in her hair, a gleam in her eyesAnd love (and love) in her heart (in her heart) for me
 
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Bob Merrill
She Wears Red Feathers lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc
 
They don’t make them like that any more! She Wears Red Feathers was written in 1952 by Bob Merrill. Guy Mitchell recorded it in July of that year, and it was released as a single on both 45 and 78rpm formats on 26 December in the US and on 78 in the UK: the 45rpm release here didn’t come until May 1953, after the song had already topped the chart. It peaked at #19 in the US but fared much better here in the UK: it first charted on 13 February 1953 (my late Mum’s birthday) and made #1 in March, where it stayed for four weeks. It also appeared on the UK’s sheet music charts on February 21, 1953, and peaked at #3. I have happy memories of singing it while Mum played and encouraged my little sister to dance along and join in with the chorus.
 
Guy Mitchell was very popular at that time, and had five records in that nascent Top Twelve chart in 1953: two #1s, two #2s, and an abject failure at #4! I mentioned earlier that he was at #1 in the week in which I was born, the first of a six week stay at the top with this one:
 
 
Look At That Girl was also written by Bob Merrill – he and Guy were clearly a good combination. I don’t actually remember hearing this one when I was a kid, though I expect Mum had the sheet music for it! It spent 17 weeks on the sheet music chart, peaking at #6, and a total of 14 weeks on the singles chart, including that six week run at the top. To be honest, this isn’t really my kind of music, but Guy undeniably has a good voice and I can readily understand his success.
 
That’s all for today. This has been an interesting challenge, and I’m looking forward to seeing how old all of the other participants are, and if the ladies will be honest or coy. Thanks, Jim, but you really should know better than to ask that!
 
And advance Happy Birthday to me – it’s on the 16th, if you want to know when to send the lorryloads of chocolate 😉
 
See you again on Tuesday, for some more Tunes 🎶

45 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday: A Hooly-Hooly Skirt”

  1. Pingback: My September | Take It Easy

  5. Yes, what a seismic shift in music at the time. Suddenly Mitchell and his bowler was literally old hat. And then less than ten years later the hep cats and Pat Boone style teen idols got rudely shoved aside by the long locked British invaders! Who would or could have predict musical trends from 54 to 64?

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    • It’s fun, isn’t it. Against my expectations I quite enjoyed Look at that Girl too, though I’ve played it before. Feathers was one we had fun with as a kid before I ever heard Guy Mitchell singing it 😊

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  11. Thanks for sharing your music Clive and Happy Birthday to you. I figured that we were around the same age, and I guess that the theme this week might be a bit too personal for some people to want to respond. Guy Mitchell’s decline on the pop charts in the United States in the mid-50’s coincided with the rise of rock and roll.

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  12. Now that takes me back way back even before my time. I accept the red feathers I was once wild about purple boas LOL but what is the world is a hooly hooly skirt? Guess what happens when i Google it? I get the song you posted.

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    • It was five months before I was born too! They got the name wrong, though: it should have been a hula hula skirt, a grass skirt worn by Hawaiian dancers. Nice to know that song is Google’s offering 🤣

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    • Glad you liked them, Willow. Music changed a lot, very quickly, and to my ears for the better but I do quite like these.

      I can just see Sam prancing around like a twat in a hooly-hooly skirt 🤣

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