Home | Songs By Year | Songs from 1961
Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills
Buy Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the song. And once you've experienced the song, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'"Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills"' is a novelty song written and performed by Ray Stevens. It was released as a single in 1961 and became Stevens' very first Hot 100 single, peaking at #35 in September. Its lyrics tell of a fictional "wonder drug" that, when taken in a daily dose, can cure myriad ailments, much in the same way unscrupulous patent medicine salesmen marketed their wares in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The song is also notable for having the longest title (104 characters) of any single on the 'Billboard' Hot 100 chart at the time of its release. In 1981, the Dutch remixers Stars on 45 released the medley with an official title 194 characters long - "Medley: Intro Venus/Sugar Sugar/No Reply/I'll Be Back/Drive My Car/Do You Want to Know a Secret/We Can Work It Out/I Should Have Known Better/Nowhere Man/You're Going to Lose That Girl/Stars on 45". Usually known simply as "Stars on 45", the record was legally required to list all of its component songs as part of its official title for copyright reasons, and thus usurped Stevens' record. (Another song often mentioned in the longest-title sweepstakes is the Hoagy Carmichael tune, "I'm A Cranky Old Yank In A Clanky Old Tank On The Streets Of Okinawa With My Honolulu Mama Doin' Those Beat-O Beat-O Flats On The Seat Of My Hirohito Blues" (155 characters), recorded by Bing Crosby and by Carmichael himself in 1945. However, the song predated the establishment of the Hot 100, was never a hit, and indeed was probably never issued as a single; moreover, it is usually referred to simply as "I'm A Cranky Old Yank" on a handful of compilations.)
Chart run
'Billboard' Hot 100 (6 weeks, entered August 21): Reached #35
'Cashbox' (8 weeks, entered August 19): 99, 81, 69, 59, 52, 42, 38, 61
References
Category:Novelty songs
Category:Ray Stevens songs
Category:1961 singles
Category:Songs written by Ray Stevens
Category:Songs about drugs
Category:Mercury Records singles
Category:1961 songs
Buy Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills now from Amazon
<-- Return to songs from 1961