"Crazy Downtown" is a song written and performed by
Allan Sherman
Allan may refer to:
People
* Allan (name), a given name and surname, including list of people and characters with this name
* Allan (footballer, born 1984) (Allan Barreto da Silva), Brazilian football striker
* Allan (footballer, born 1989) (Al ...
. The song is a parody of
Tony Hatch
Anthony Peter Hatch (born 30 June 1939) is an English composer for musical theatre and television. He is also a songwriter, pianist, arranger and producer.
Early life and early career
Hatch was born in Pinner, Middlesex. Encouraged by his mus ...
's song "
Downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
" which was a hit for
Petula Clark
Petula Sally Olwen Clark, CBE (born 15 November 1932) is an English singer, actress, and composer. She has one of the longest serving careers of a British singer, spanning more than seven decades.
Clark's professional career began during the ...
(because of the use of the melody, Hatch also receives songwriting credit). The song reached #6 on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart and #40 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in 1965; it was Sherman's last top-40 hit.Allan Sherman, "Crazy Downtown" chart positions Retrieved May 5, 2013
The song is sung from the point of view of a father whose teenaged children have gone " frooging" downtown with their car and money. At first, the parents are relieved that they can now use the phone and the bath tub but, as the hours pass, they get increasingly nervous. Meanwhile their offspring frug to the songs of Petula Clark while they are downtown. Eventually, the parents take
Miltown
Meprobamate—marketed as Miltown by Wallace Laboratories and Equanil by Wyeth, among others—is a carbamate derivative used as an anxiolytic drug. It was the best-selling minor tranquilizer for a time, but has largely been replaced by the benz ...
in order to calm themselves down. However the father gets a phone call telling him that their children have been arrested as the result of a car accident, prompting him to angrily borrow someone else's car to get his sons home. He then vows to ground the teenagers and go downtown with his wife, where he promises to do "very nice dances" including the
tango
Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...
,
waltz
The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position.
History
There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the wa ...
,
foxtrot
The foxtrot is a smooth, progressive dance characterized by long, continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. It is danced to big band (usually vocal) music. The dance is similar in its look to waltz, although the rhythm is in a tim ...