Monday, November 3, 2008

Silly Songs: Zippy


Silly Songs: Zippy

[purchase]

As I commented earlier, I had planned to offer up another song for this week’s theme, but Darius’ Steve Goodman led me to Michael Smith – Six Degrees of Separation (minus four) indeed…

Michael Peter Smith (not to be confused with Michael W. Smith, the contemporary Christian artist!) is a singer-songwriter based in the Chicago area, whose best-known work is probably The Dutchman but whose catalog spans decades of material, penduluming from heartfelt to hilarious – he has been covered by Anne Hills, Bernice Lewis, Tom Rush, Claudia Schmidt, Jerry Jeff Walker, Liam Clancy, Small Potatoes, Gordon Bok, Sam Pacetti (whose version of There is positively sighworthy) and even Jimmy Buffett.
Michael had quite a reputation at The Flick in Miami (before I moved to South Florida), playing six nights a week for three years – he performs at GambleFest in St. Augustine each May (having written Gamble’s Guitar for Gamble Rogers, who left this world entirely too early trying to save someone from drowning), as well as other festivals, clubs, concert halls and house concerts. I was honored to present Michael in my living room in May 2002 – he is as shy offstage as he is captivating onstage.

So… here’s Zippy – I not only think it’s one of the funniest songs I’ve ever heard… but I’m in constant awe of the fact he has memorized and can deliver each word/line without tripping (no pun intended) over his own tongue!

Submitted by Susan

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