Top 10 British Comedy Songs
- Published August 31, 2007 - 39 Comments
This list looks at some of the best comedy songs released in Britain in the last 50 years. Since the renaissance period, man has used music as a form of comedy and the modern times are no exception. Here are the top 10 British Comedy Songs.
1. The Fastest Milkman in the West – Benny Hill
This song reached number 1 and stayed there for 4 weeks. It is typical Benny Hill.
2. ‘Ello John, Got a New Motor – Alexei Sayle
Alexei Sayle is famous for the anarchic comedy the Young Ones, but deserves a lot of recognition for this track. It shows just how alternative the charts could be in the early eighties in England.
3. With My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock – George Formby
George Formby was a pioneer of early comedy songs and famous for his double entendres. His songs may seem a little tame nowadays, but the BBC banned his tune Cleaning Windows for being too suggestive. Strangely With My Stick of Blackpool Rock is far worse.
4. Every Sperm is Sacred – Monty Python
There were many Monty Python songs, but this is one of the funniest. Many religious people were not overly impressed.
5. The Chicken Song – Spitting Image
“Skin… your-… self alive;
Learn to speak Arapho;
Climb inside a dog
And behead an Eskimo!
Eat a Renault 4;
Wear salami in your ears;
Casserole your Gran;
Disembowel yourself with spears!”
Released in 1986 and hitting number 1, this is another example of how alternative the UK charts were in the eighties. Spitting Image was a deeply satirical TV show using vile looking puppets to parody celebrities and politicians. The Chicken Song is a spoof of catchy novelty songs and the bizarre chorus stays in your head for days.
6. The Ying Tong Song – The Goons
The hilarious Goons Show in the fifties was where Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan made their name. This song is a good example of their surrealist humor.
7. Jilted John – Graham Fellows
Graham Fellows is an underrated comic, mostly because his humor is so subtle. Like his other creation, John Shuttleworth, Jilted John is funnier the more you watch it. Jilted John is a rare example of someone daring to parody punk in the seventies. And he was young too.
8. Do the Funky Gibbon – The Goodies
This song is so stupid that you really do not want to find it funny, but unfortunately you cannot help but laugh along to their good-natured antics. The Goodies released a few songs into the charts including A Man’s Best Friend is a Duck.
9. Lily the Pink – Scaffold
An Interesting band that included poet Richard McGough and Paul Mc Cartney’s brother Michael. The song begins relatively straight, but deteriorates into something quite bizarre. It stayed at number 1 for four weeks in 1968.
10. Divorce – Billy Connelly
Billy Connelly based this on a song by Tammy Wynette about two people who spell out the word divorce when they want to discuss it in front of their child. Billy Connelly replaces the child with a dog.
Contributor: Simon Arms













August 31st, 2007 at 6:14 am
Hermans Hermits’ “Henry the 8th I Am” is pretty funny, don’t know if it was a hit in Britain though.
August 31st, 2007 at 6:21 am
Joe: I have heard of the Hermits and the song but haven’t heard the song. I am not from Britain though so I don’t know whether the British would know it.
September 4th, 2007 at 5:35 am
what about Napoleon XIV – theyre coming to take me away?
September 6th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Thanks for the Alexei Sayle video, loved his standup and his work on “Young Ones”. Now I have to go to youtube and try to find his bit about the taxi driver, a true classic.
September 6th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Whoot! found it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iabcyH8_xY&mode=related&search= .. Alexis starts at about 1:30 of the clip and does a solid 4min
September 10th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Wow! What a list! Haha!
It’s been a LONG time since I heard the Chicken Song… takes me back to my school days!
September 10th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
And if every sperm actually IS sacred like the Pythons say, then I’m definately going to HELL! Haha!
September 21st, 2007 at 7:05 am
I would like to add ‘Living Doll’ by Cliff Richard and the Young Ones. “Well I feel sorry for the elephant.”
September 21st, 2007 at 7:08 am
Barb: I used to love that song.
November 4th, 2007 at 12:14 am
What about Tongue Tied or the Theme from Red Dwarf?
November 29th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Every Sperm is Sacred IS a classic, but how about “I’m a Lumberjack?” (Python)
December 19th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Man, it’s good to see that someone else knows about all these British comedians!
Alexi Sayle is the best. Anyone seen “Stuff”?
I think Python should have their own song list.
Hey, George Formby reminds me of Arthur Atkinson from The Fast Show! Where’s me washboard, eh?
February 6th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I was waiting for “Combine Harvester” by the Wurzels. Their genre is literally “Scrumpy and Western”.
I too wanted to see the Lumberjack song from Python up there.
Perhaps in a future list? (I smell a trilogy, much like the Bizarre Video trilogy)
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:02 am
What about “Little Miss Munter” by Inherent Woods. Hilarious!!! Should be a karaoke classic. check out the video on YouTube!!!!
February 29th, 2008 at 11:30 am
what about Hugh Laurie´s “mistery”???? that one is great!
May 4th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Jfrater: Nice to see a Pyton song here. Well I would have killed you if there were none. But why every sperm is sacred(it is a great song) and not “Always look on the bright side of life”?
By the way you should really look at some of the Fry and Laurie stuff
America
Steffi Graff
Mystery
And Little Girl very funny songs.
May 24th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
How about The Monks “nice legs shame about the face”
May 27th, 2008 at 1:58 am
You need some Mighty Boosh up there post haste!!!
July 27th, 2008 at 6:02 am
Jilted John
August 1st, 2008 at 6:30 am
No mention of Jasper Carrott’s kick-starter, ‘Funky Moped’ — No 5 in 1975. For shame!
November 13th, 2008 at 10:31 am
what about bill bailey? in his stand up shows he does some of the most hilarious songs
November 25th, 2008 at 2:38 am
What a great list! Are there any from way back, e.g. Laurel & Hardy’s Lonesome Pine or even earlier?
December 18th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
What? No Bonzo Dog Band? No list of comedic British songs is complete without them!
January 5th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
If you like comedy songs or fancy yourself as a musical comedian – the Musical Comedy Awards are coming! Website will be up from mid Jan at http://www.musicalcomedy.co.uk, people can upload original comedy songs and potentially get nominated to perform at the Pleasance Theatre in London on April 11th and win £1,000. Check it out!
January 10th, 2009 at 7:51 am
What about Monty Python’s The Philosopher’s Song?
January 30th, 2009 at 7:09 am
The Firm – Star Trekkin’
Mr Blobby – The Blobby Song
lol
February 14th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
hahaha typical i would know quite a few of these, speaking as a brit:D
” i gotta brandnew combine harvester and i ll give you the key”
February 14th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
ooh “star trekkin across the universe”
Dont get me started on the blobby song
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:06 am
I like the list, but some of the links are broken. I can think of a few songs that can go on this list but the title is Top 10 so I won’t bother…
March 6th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Why isn’t the Penis song on here, also by Monty Python, from the same movie as the Sperm song “Isn’t it awfully nice to have a penis?/Isn’t it frightfully good to have a dong?/It’s swell to have a stiffy./It’s divine to own a dick,/From the tiniest little tadger/To the world’s biggest prick./So, three cheers for your Willy or John Thomas./Hooray for your one-eyed trouser snake,/Your piece of pork, your wife’s best friend,/Your Percy, or your cock./You can wrap it up in ribbons./You can slip it in your sock,/But don’t take it out in public,/Or they will stick you in the dock,/And you won’t come back. “
April 12th, 2009 at 4:06 am
“I’m Henery the Eighth, I Am” was originally a 1910 British music hall song by Fred Murray and R. P. Weston. It was a signature song of music hall star Harry Champion
April 18th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
looking for ***When Father Painted the Parlor*** sung by Harry Champion,any helpersout there??
April 19th, 2009 at 4:33 am
R. P. Weston, 1878-1936
Our parlor wanted papering,
And Pa says it was waste
To call a paperhanger in,
And so he made some paste.
He bought some rolls of paper,
Got a ladder and a brush
And with my mummy’s nightgown on,
At it he made a rush.
Chorus:
When Father papered the parlour
You couldn’t see him for paste
Dabbing it here! dabbing it there!
Paste and paper everywhere
Mother was stuck to the ceiling
The children stuck to the floor
I never knew a blooming family
So ’stuck up’ before.
The pattern was ‘blue roses’
with its leaves red, white, and brown;
He’d stuck it wrong way up and now,
we all walk upside down.
And when he trimm’d the edging
off the paper with the shears,
The cat got underneath it,
and dad cut off both its ears.
Chorus: Soon dad fell down the stairs
and dropp’d his paperhanger’s can
On little Henrietta sitting there
with her young man,
The paste stuck them together,
as we thought t’would be for life,
We had to fetch the parson in
to make them man and wife.
Chorus:
We’re never going to move away
from that house any more
For Father’s gone and stuck the chairs
and table to the floor,
We can’t find our piano,
though it’s broad and rather tall,
We think that it’s behind the paper
Pa stuck on the wall.
Chorus:
Now, Father’s sticking in the pub,
through treading in the paste,
And all the family’s so upset,
they’ve all gone pasty faced.
While Pa says, now that Ma has spread
the news from north to south,
He wishes he had dropped a blob
of paste in Mother’s mouth.
Chorus:
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:46 am
Sayles lyrics:
Rich peopel dont know how to dance or party on the dancefloor
Thats something that you only learn when you are destitute and poor
But come the glorious day just like they had in France
Well string them from the lamposts and watch them bastards dance
By God well watch them bastards dance
Rock on Alexsi
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:00 am
Get a load of Gid Taylor’s ‘All the little fairies’ ‘Let’s Morris”At the club tonight’ and’The Songwriter’
http://www.gidtaylor.com
June 26th, 2009 at 4:31 am
Remember the little funny song put out soon after the lovely series ‘Doctor Finlay’s Casebook’.
Can’t remember all that much of it, but one set of four verses goes:
‘He insists on modern methods
in the Medical dominion,
but as the man with the wooden leg said,
‘It’s a matter of opinion!’
Can anyone help with the rest?
June 26th, 2009 at 4:33 am
Was also very pleased to see Monty Python front and centre. I am a very long-standing python addict, and even longer lying down!
November 11th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Сорри за офф-топик, не подскажете, где мона такой же симпатичный шаблон для блога взять?