One-hit wonder (antedating 1958 December 27)

[Garson O'Toole]

The topic was test tubes and Wilson Gray wrote:
> What's the verse from the old song?
> "Get your son, get your daughter, too
> "From the bottom of a long black shoe"

Right, that is a mondegreen based on the lyrics of the number-one-hit
song "In The Year 2525" by Zager and Evans (fourth line given below):

In the year 6565
Ain't gonna need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
>From the bottom of a long glass tube

(These lyric lines are in quite a few databases but part of the
transcription of the second line above sounds inaccurate to me.)

[Transitioning to a new topic.] Zager and Evans (and this song) have
been invoked to illustrate the term "one-hit wonder" for many years.
OED has this phrase listed under "one".

one-hit wonder n. colloq. a performer, etc., who gains only one
popular success before returning to relative anonymity; a song, etc.,
by such a performer.

The first OED cite is dated 1977. The redoubtable Ben Zimmer sent an
excellent 1966 cite from the Los Angeles Times to the ADS list back in
2004. Here is an instance in 1958:

Cite: 1958 December 27, Ottawa Citizen, Showbill Notes: And Everything
He Said Why It All Came True by Gord Atkinson, Page 12, Ottawa,
Canada. (Google News archive)

Several one-hit wonders of the old year will vanish into shellac obscurity.

The ADS archives contain multiple instances of one-hit wonder.
Recently, the subject line "Dante, the one-hit wonder" appeared many
times.

Garson

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 7:07 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Perdue (not Frank either)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 7:58 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Growing 'em in big tubes is bad enough. But bug tubes are unconscionable.
>
> What's the verse from the old song?
>
> "Get your son, get your daughter, too
> "From the bottom of a long black shoe"
>
> --
> -Wilson

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