The Gateway Singers
Skip to: “The Ballad Of Sigmund Freud”
The Ed Sullivan Show reportedly cancelled an appearance by Gateway Singers, after executives from the CBS television network objected to showing a mixed-race group.
Fresh from 1958, we have The Gateway Singers.
The Gateway Singers were an American folk music group that played and sang from 1955 to 1961. They consisted of Jerry Walter (baritone vocals, banjo), Lou Gottlieb (bass, baritone vocals, 1955-58), Jim Wood (vocals, 1955), Travis Edmonson (guitar, 1955-58), Elmerlee Thomas (vocals, 1955-60), Ernie Sheldon (guitar, vocals, 1958-59), Mark Richards (guitar, 1958-61), Adam Fredericks (guitar, 1959-61)
from Wikipedia:
The Gateway Singers were an American folk music group who achieved national prominence in the US in the late 1950s. The group was included in the Smithsonian’s Folk Song America compilation. The group is best known for their song “Puttin’ on the Style”, which was later used in a beer commercial and sold one million copies.
Gateway Singers member Lou Gottlieb left the band, obtained his PhD in musicology from the University of California and then formed The Limeliters. Travis Edmonson left the Gateway Singers to form the duo Bud & Travis with Bud Dashiell.
The group split in 1961, however, three of the members Milt Chapman, Betty Mann, and Jerry Walter, continued performing as the Gateway Trio until, after releasing albums for Capitol Records, the trio broke up.
The Ed Sullivan Show reportedly cancelled an appearance by Gateway Singers, after executives from the CBS television network objected to showing a mixed-race group.
The Ballad Of Sigmund Freud
From the live album “The Gateway Singers at the Hungry I” (San Francisco), 1958.
Included here are the video and lyrics for “The Ballad of Sigmund Freud.”
Missing are the Gateway Singers performances of “Let’s all Room Together” and “Supply and Demand.”
Oh Doctor Freud (Doctor Freud), Oh Doctor Freud (Doctor Freud)
How we wish you had been differently employed!
For the set of circumstances still enhances the finances
Of the followers of Doctor Sigmund Freud.
Well, it started in Vienna not so many years ago
When not enough folks were getting sick
That a starving young physician tried to better his position
By discovering what made his patients tick
He forgot about sclerosis and invented the psychosis
And a thousand ways that sex could be enjoyed
He adopted as his credo, “Down repression, Up libido!”
And that was the start of Doctor Sigmund Freud
Oh Doctor Freud (Doctor Freud), Oh Doctor Freud (Doctor Freud)
How we wish you had been differently employed!
For the set of circumstances still enhances the finances
Of the followers of Doctor Sigmund Freud.
Well, he analyzed the dreams of the teeming libertines
Substituted monologue for pills
He drew crowds just like William Sadler, when along came Jung and Adler
And they said, “By God, there’s gold in them thar ills!”
They encountered no resistance when they served as Freud’s assistants
As with ego and with id they deftly toyed
For instead of toting bedpans, they wore analytic deadpans
Those ambitious doctors Adler, Jung, and Freud!
Oh Doctor Freud, (Doctor Freud), Oh Doctor Freud, (Doctor Freud),
How we wish you had been differently employed!
But the set of circumstances still enhances the finances
Of the followers of Doctor Sigmund Freud.
Now the big three have departed, but not so the cult they started
It’s being carried on by a goodly band
And to trauma, shock, and war shock, someone’s gone and added Rorschach
And the thing has got completely out of hand!
So old boys with double chinsies, and a million would-be Kinseys
They discuss it at the drop of a repression
And I wouldn’t be complaining, but for all the loot I’m paying
Just to lie on someone’s couch and say confession?
Oh Doctor Freud (cha cha cha), Oh Doctor Freud (cha cha cha)
How we wish you had been differently employed!
The set of circumstances still enhances the finances
Of the followers of Doctor Sigmund Freud.
For the set of circumstances still enhances the finances
Of the followers of Doctor Sigmund Freud.