My Top Ten Ice Cream Songs

As the UK prepares for a heatwave, here's a few ice creams to cool you down if it gets too hot...

Oh, by the way, that new ice cream-themed Blur album I was talking about a few weeks back... Magic Whip... did it stand the test of time?

Not really. Actually, the more I listened to it, the more I found it rather annoying. Maybe my Blur days are behind me. I'd rather listen to Brad Paisley. (Here they are anyway, make up your own mind: Blur - Ice Cream Man).



10. Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby

OK, so I was a big Queen fan growing up... Hence, when this came out in 1990 - with its sampled bastardisation of Under Pressure - I considered it a crime against nature. I wasn't alone: many critics and proper hip hop stars took the piss out of Robert Van Winkle - especially when he initially claimed the sample wasn't a sample at all. Still, it was a Number One record all across the world (scandalously, the first hip hop song to make Number One on the Billboard chart in America) and I've developed a grudging appreciation for it over the years. I'm not claiming it's a good record, but like a lot of good pop music it reminds me of a specific moment in my life. I was 18... and I had no idea. Just like that infamous "lyrical poet" whose "style is like a chemical spill"...

Watch out though: this record will kill your brain like a poisonous mushroom.

9.  New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream

Tahita Rotardier Bulmer can give you what you want. I bet she wants to give her parents a slap for naming her that though.

8. Van Halen  - Ice Cream Man

I don't know why it is, but many of the ice cream songs in my collection appear to be thinly veiled metaphors for sexy-time stuff. Van Halen, of course, would never lower themselves to such dubious shenanigans...

Yeah, right. 

7. Glasvegas - Ice Cream Van

A rarity then: an ice cream song that's not about sexy-time stuff. It's not about ice cream either... instead, it's about how all politicians are scumbags. Or something. It is über-atmospheric though. 

6. Fight Like Apes -  Ice Cream Apple Fuck

Google says, "We do not have the lyrics for Ice Cream Apple Fuck yet."

And sadly, neither does the insert to the excellent CD 'The Body of Christ and the Legs of Tina Turner', from which this divine little ditty originates. From what I can make out, though, they're pretty mental. But then, you probably got that from the title.

5. Lloyd Cole - Ice Cream Girl

So - as is often the case - some girl is leading Lloyd a merry dance, leaving him feeling like a shady politician trying to sell a used car. We've all been there, Lloyd...

D'you want to crucify my feelings with your fingernails
And leave the loneliest boy in the western world
Cruising the streets for an ice cream girl?

4. Tom Waits - Ice Cream Man

If Tom Waits was your ice cream man... you'd have him arrested.

See me coming, you ain't got no change
Don't worry baby, it can be arranged:
Show me you can smile, baby just for me
Fix you with a drumstick, I'll do it for free

3. Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers - Ice Cream Man

But if I were a Richman... I'd have ice cream everyday.

2. John Cougar Mellencamp - Jack & Diane

Not the first time I've featured this song on this blog... and it won't be the last. It is one of the greatest pop songs of the 80s in my humble opinion. But what's it got to do with ice cream...?

Suckin' on chilli dog outside the Tastee Freez
Diane sitting on Jacky's lap
Got his hands between her knees
Jack - he says:
"Hey, Diane, let's run off behind a shady tree
Dribble off those Bobby Brooks
Let me do what I please."

Tastee Freeez is a famous chain of American ice cream shops. Bobby Brooks were a brand of women's clothing. Work out the rest yourself.

1. Little Richard - Tutti Frutti

One of a handful of pioneering records that gave birth to rock 'n' roll, Tutti Frutti also boasts one of the greatest opening lines since "Now is the winter of our discontent" (or "Discount Tents", if you work in advertising).

"A-wop-bom-a-loo-mop-a-lomp-bom-bom!"

(N.b. If you think Little Richard sings "A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom!" - as I once did - listen more closely. That was Elvis's version.)

But... is it really a song about ice cream? Not according to Charles Connor, Richard Penniman's drummer in the early 50s, who reveals here the song's original lyrics. You'll never eat Tutti Frutti again...




So - which is your 99... and which is your... erm... knickerbocker glory?