Re: I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)

Is there anything particularly cloying about this song?

Granted, those are some pretty saccharine pet-names, but are they really worse than "baby?"

Is there any reason to appreciate this song less than many other good Motown hits.

Or is it a common case of overfamiliarity, combined with some contempt for the way it's been used in pop culture?

M. Johnson wrote:

> Is there anything particularly cloying about this song?

Not really. It's just overplayed.

Overplayed. I concur. The local classic-rawk station usually inserts that song between "Kashmir" and "Rocky Mountain Way."

(((yawn)))

I don't go out of my way to listen to The Four Tops, but Levi Stubbs was a heck of a singer.

If this song were a person, I'd punch it in the stomach it's that annoying.

As annoying as these?
-----------------------------

Poopsy Doodles
Schnookums
Lover Bunny
Pooky Bear
Wittle Nookie Nuk-Nuks
Kissy Kibbles
Smoochy Buckets
Fluff Bumps
Kitten Pickles
Pudgy Pops
Oojy Coojy Woojy Moojy Poo-Poo
Honey Bunny Buckles
Cookie Pops
Squeegee Cakes
Silly Willy Jigabilly
Puddin’ Knickers
Monkey Chicklets
Moo Moo Flops
Snuggle Sausage
Love Puddle
Moushy Goushy Toushy
Snoopy Snails
Fuzzy Jujubear
Lovecycles
Booboo Bungalow
Licky Stickypoo
Chickadoodle Doo Doo
Muffy Peckers
Fudge Nuggets
Juicy Pooper
Creamy Jiggles
Flubber Cheeks
Puppy Puddles
Bunny Scuppers
Cuddle Chutney
Moo Goo Guy Pan
Mr. Binkle
Squeaky Wiggles
Coochie Custard
Honey Bunches of Cuddle Muffins

-------------------

(from someone's blog)

-------------------

I know that The Pastels did "Baby, Honey."

My Bloody Valentine has a tune called "Sugar."

...

TP Pet Names? Blech!

Sugar Pie, Pudgy Pops
You know that I love you
I can't help myself
I love you and nobody else

In and out my life
You come and you go
Leaving just your love puddle behind
And I've kissed it a thousand times
When you snuggle your sausage, or wink your eye,
I come a-running to you
I'm tied to your moushy Goush,
And there's nothing that I can do

I can't help myself,
No, I can't help myself,

'Cause, Puddin’ Knickers Honey Bunch
I'm weaker than a man should be
I can't help myself
I'm a fool in love 'ya see

Wanna tell you I don't love you,
Tell you that we're through
And I try....
But ev'ry time I see your face,
I get all choked up inside
When I call your name,
Cooch, it starts to flame
Burning in my heart,
Tearing it all apart..
No matter how I try
My love I cannot hide....

'Cause Kitten Pickles Pudgy Pops
You know that I'm waiting for you
I can't help myself
I love you and nobody else

Muffy Peckers Flubber Cheeks
I'd do anything you ask me to
I can't help myself
I want you and nobody else

Creamy Jiggles, Squeaky Wiggles
You know that I love you
I can't help myself...
No... I can't help myself

The garden party applauds!

I believe the song is a potential candidate for a Nitrous Oxide Party Perfect Playlist. <grin>

One form of innovation is through perversion of the genre, a phrase I borrow from Jean-Pierre Gorin. By reinterpreting the song and placing it within a different and unexpected context you may be able to transform it into something quite clever. Quentin Tarantino could probably use it as an appropriate soundtrack to some particularly bizarre scene.

Some unlikely juxtapositions are the inspiration of genius.



Post Edited (08-14-09 03:47)

Man oh man I hate the poor use of the Human Beinz' Nobody But Me in film (including Tarantino.)

That fantastic track is invariably hacked down to sixty seconds through terrible edits, or it is clumsily faded out (wholly inappropriate for something so propulsive.)

It's a great song with some silly lyrics that are sung the hell out of by Levi Stubbs. Overplayed because it's a safe song to use in commercials and nostalgia flicks.

It is certainly a cloying lyric (really, who even possesses the urge to call their loved one "sugar pie honey bunch" ?) but musically this is a solid, driving Motown number. There are entire genres of music without a single song as good as this. Reggaeton, anyone?

> One form of innovation is through perversion of the genre, a phrase I borrow from Jean-Pierre
> Gorin. By reinterpreting the song and placing it within a different and unexpected context you
> may be able to transform it into something quite clever.

When I read that, I instantly thought of the closet scene in the movie Parents — the light, tinkly, dentist's-office music playing in the background, while Randy Quaid keeps shoving a carving knife through the louvers in the closet doors, at a woman who's trapped in there. Unbelievably creepy.

Speaking of overplaying - the use of some sweet non-threatening music during a particularly intense scene if a movie is pretty overplayed. I'm trying to think of the earliest that I remember this but I can only get to "Blue Velvet" with Roy Orbison's "In Dreams".

I know that horror movies have used children's songs and nursery rhymes for this effect forever (mainly because it is really effective). I'm trying to think of examples with pop songs. I agree with Nile that Tarantino's use of Stealers Wheel in "Reservoir Dogs" caused the use to explode with every wannabe hip filmmaker.

Quote

I'm trying to think of the earliest that I remember this but I can only get to "Blue Velvet" with Roy Orbison's "In Dreams".

I may be wrong, but I think that all started with Kubrick.

In Dr. Strangelove there's the mid-air refueling of the bombers to the tune of "Try a Little Tenderness," then the world ends in nuclear holocaust to the soundtrack of "We'll Meet Again."

Then he refined it with the use of Beethoven and Malcolm McDowell's rendition of "Singing In the Rain" during a brutal gang-rape in A Clockwork Orange.

(Due to my poor grammar, that sounds like Beethoven and McDowell were out singing & raping together. But you know what I meant.)

Someone may have used the technique earlier than Kubrick, but he's the earliest one I can think of.

And it definitely is a device whose impact has become diluted by overuse in the hands of lesser filmmakers than Kubrick, Lynch and Tarantino. The Reduced Shakespeare Company parody it now in their Great Movies production, where the whole thing ends in a slow-mo gun battle with "What a Wonderful World" playing over the PA.



Post Edited (08-14-09 14:05)

Try Scorpio Rising by Kenneth Anger. That is were it all began. Awesome short film. Creepy as f*ck.

no moreinane than dizzy miss lizzy

a great song

overplayed? sure. are we able to extract it from other works of perfection from Motown? impossible.

but in and of itself a great song
a great singer
and a great list of 10 or 12 struck by lightning moments by underrated tops

Meshugga pie hunney butt -- definitely a festering boil on the ass of Motown since the song came out. Need to amputate, please!

Association sometimes works to one's benefit, of course. When I hear "Sugar Pie Honey Bunch," I automatically think of the scene in Where the Buffalo Roam, where Hunter S. Thompson (Bill Murray) is dancing in a hospital room with a very cute, partially undressed nurse.