Death cab for Cutie Bonzo Dog Lyrics

Just left school, nice and clean Power tool man machine Steady job,

With big, hungry tigers table manners have no place (Dear dear

There’s a farm called Misery, but of that we’ll have

I had a lot of acne and pimples I had to

All the world's a stage they say And I've seen many

[Spoken] How do you think it's going? So-so. A lot of it's rubbish,

Rockaliser baby Rockin' round the town Don't you realise, my friend You're bring

I'm gonna get you in my tent, tent, tent tent,

[Spoken]: One, two, three, kick! Come on everybody, clap your hands Ooh,

[Spoken]: I have personally won over... [Sung] Aah... Looking like a muscle man

That night Cutie called a cab
-Baby don't do it
She left her East Side drum so drab
-Baby don't do it
She went out on the town
Knowing it would make her lover frown
-Death cab for Cutie
-Death cab for Cutie
Someone's going to make you pay your fare

The cab was racing through the night
-Baby don't do it
His eyes in the mirror, keeping Cutie in sight
-Baby don't do it
When he saw Cutie it gave him a thrill
Don't you know Baby, curves can kill
-Death cab for Cutie
-Death cab for Cutie
Someone's going to make you pay your fare

Cutie, don't you play with fate
Don't leave your lover alone
If you go out on this date
His heart will turn to stone

Bad girl Cutie, what have you done
-Baby don't do it
Slipping sliding down Highway 31
-Baby don't do it
The traffic lights changed from green to red
They tried to stop but they both wound up dead
-Death cab for Cutie
-Death cab for Cutie
Someone's going to make you pay your fare
Someone's going to make you pay your fare
Someone's going to make you pay your fare
Someone's going to make you pay your fare

This song is from the album "Dogs Life: Albums 1967-1972" and "Gorilla".

"Death Cab for Cutie" is a song composed by Vivian Stanshall and Neil Innes and performed by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. It was included on their 1967 album Gorilla.

Content[edit]

Innes's inspiration for the song was the title of a story in an old American pulp fiction crime magazine he came across at a street market.[1] Stanshall's primary contribution was to shape "Death Cab for Cutie" as a parody of Elvis Presley (notably Presley's 1957 hit "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear"), and he sang it as such, with undertones of 1950s doo-wop. In the style of several early teenage tragedy songs, such as "Teen Angel", it tells a story of youthful angst. "Cutie," who goes out on the town against her lover's wishes ("Last night Cutie caught a cab, uhuh-huh ..."), is killed when the taxicab she is in runs a red light and crashes.

The song became one of the Bonzo Dog Band's better-known numbers when it was featured in the Beatles' 1967 television film Magical Mystery Tour. Performed in a stage routine by the Bonzos, it accompanied a striptease act, performed by Jan Carson of the Raymond Revuebar, who was enthusiastically ogled by club customers including John Lennon and George Harrison. Paul McCartney had coaxed Stanshall into wearing a pink chiffon scarf to look more "trendy".[2]

Performances[edit]

The Bonzo Dog Band performed the song in a 1967 episode of the TV series Do Not Adjust Your Set, in which the band is gushingly introduced by Michael Palin (who gets the title wrong). The band appeared regularly on the show—a so-called children's programme which featured Palin, Eric Idle and other later-famous comedians.

Alex Chilton of Big Star covered the song live on WLYX Memphis in 1975. The song is also referenced on the 1984 Culture Club album Waking Up with the House on Fire, in the song "Crime Time", which is a throwback to the early rock 'n' roll sound.

The title also occurs in Richard Hoggart's 1957 book The Uses of Literacy, a pioneering work in the cultural studies field that discusses British popular culture. In Chapter 8, "The Newer Mass Art: Sex in Shiny Packets", under part C: "Sex and Violence Novels", Hoggart provides a list of "imitations" of the "terse, periodic titles" of these "American sex-novels", including "Sweetie, Take It Hot"; "The Lady Takes a Dive"; "Aim Low, Angel"; "Sweetheart, Curves Can Kill"; and "Death-Cab for Cutie".

Going further back, a 1949 detective pulp fiction novel by Hank Janson (the pen-name of English author Stephen Daniel Frances) was published in the UK with the title Slay-Ride for Cutie.[3]

Ben Gibbard used the title of the song as the name of the rock band he founded in 1997. "I would absolutely go back and give it [the band] a more obvious name," he reflected in 2011; "Thank God for Wikipedia. At least now, people don’t have to ask me where the fucking name came from every interview."[4] He later revised this stance, stating that he's "glad we have the name now, but in the early days it was tough" during a solo concert that was streamed online in March 2020.[citation needed]

What happened to the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band?

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