Revisiting C. W. McCall's "Crispy Critters" for Reasons I Don't Understand

My childhood was greatly colored by the constant replaying of C. W. McCall's Greatest Hits, which my entire family managed to memorize despite our owning it only on 8-track tape.

The album was a weird salad of tunes ranging from hokey little comedy songs about the mishaps of truck drivers to sprawling apocalyptic visions of where 1970's America was heading in the opinion of later-to-be-activist and one-time advertising executive William Dale Fries, who'd created the character of C. W. McCall for a series of bread ads in the early 70's.

All of this was set against music that ranged from folksy jug-band arrangements to sinister orchestral soundscapes -- every bit of which was composed by Fries's friend Chip Davis who would later go on to be the founding member of Mannheim Steamroller.

That's right, the same guy who brought us the Mannheim Steamroller also scored "Old Home Filler-Up an' Keep on a-Truckin' Café".

More than any other track on the Greatest Hits collection, the song "Crispy Critters" jumps up out of my memory every now and then, and I thought it would be interesting to revisit and unpack it after what must be thirty five years.  And when I say "interesting", I mean "interesting for me."   Please don't think that I don't understand the very limited appeal of this exercise.  I'll try to make things more universal on a weekend when I'm not doing my taxes.

Here is lip-synched performance from Hee Haw which I cannot watch without feeling extraordinarily uncomfortable.

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Crispy Critters
(C.W. McCall, Bill Fries, Chip Davis)

One day about four or five years ago
We is settin' at the Conoco station
Kickin' tires, and swattin' flies,
And discussin' the State of the Union

The setting of this song is Ouray, Colorado -- a town about ten miles from Telluride.  Until the early 1970's Telluride was chiefly a mining town.  The song is an encapsulation of the area's uneasy metamorphosis from simple, traditional small town into skiing destination -- and adapting to the new residents that came with that transition.

When right out in front of the Baptist church
Come a big ol' purple school bus

It may just be a coincidence that the invasion begins at the church, but perhaps it's an acknowledgment of the fluidity of belief systems.  Notice the bus passes in front of the church, eclipsing it.

Had astrological signs upon it
And thirty-five hippies and dogs inside

It's telling that dogs and hippies are counted collectively.  More on this in line 13.  You don't have to count.  It will be obvious.

About half of 'em went for the courthouse lawn
And them dogs commenced on the fireplug
Rest of 'em set there starin' at us
And I says, "Roy, go get your Flit gun"

Not "flint-gun", but "Flit gun": a small hand insecticide sprayer chiefly for domestic use.  Until the moment in which I am typing this, I had assumed that the narrator and Roy were intending to straight-up murder the interlopers with a muzzle-loader.

He says, "Which is the hippies? And which is the dogs?"
I says, "Beats the hell outta me, Roy."

See?  Obvious.

Roy's dialog is spoken in a steady stream of 8th note triplets which is abruptly halted by the narrator's own sixteenth note, straight time outburst which then takes us back to his irregular, non-rhythmic delivery.  This not only succeeds completely as comedy, but is weirdly effective in capturing the exasperation of the narrator and establishing his character as a put-upon authority figure.

What they was, was a bunch a' them Crispy Critters
And their leader was a space cadet

This seems like a good place for the song to explain the usage of "Crispy Critter", a piece of first-responder slang that describes a burnt corpse [1]...but it doesn't happen.

A couple years ago, I became aware of people using the word 'crunchy' to describe a lifestyle that favors organic food and holistic medicines.  It seems like that's a term that would have its origin outside of the community it describes, but the community it describes seems to thoroughly dig it.

He says, "Sagittarius, we has arrived.

It's only now occurring to me that Sagittarius might be someone's name.  I'd thought it was just a colloquial exclamation, like "eureka," "sacrebleu" or "hot diggity."

"Prepare to disembark, men.
"Get the incense goin' and the sitar out
"We gonna camp in the city park, man."
I says, "Boys, let me explain the situation to ya.
"A: you're gettin' me down

I'd always heard this as "you get me down" rather than "you're gettin' me down."  No big deal.

In the thirty-five or so years since last listening to this song, the phrase "A: you get me down" has been a consistent companion to my internal monolog.  It is perfect.  It's terse, it's authoritative and it borrows a little bit from the colloquial usage of the people that the narrator is addressing, the subtext being that his dismissal of them is not rooted in misunderstanding them.

"And B: we got us a leash law here
"And C: you in the wrong town.
"You drop one string a' beads in that there park
"And you gonna see a whole lotta stars.
"You got fifteen seconds to get out of town, boys,
"Or we gonna blow ya ta Mars."

Okay, well... now that's a threat of violence that seems out of step with the rest of the song.  Although, again. I'm used to the idea of them holding muskets.

Well, they all got back in the purple bus
And proceeded to the city limits.
Then the telephone rang, was the swimmin' pool
Says a mess a' wild Critters was in it!

 I like that capitalization of 'critters' .  

It's a little weird that the telephone at the Conoco station would ring if there were some sort of town emergency.

So we all got in the Marshal's Plymouth
(Which is always at the Conoco station)

Oh, well... that explains it.

This parenthetical phrase is my favorite moment of the song. It tells you everything you need to know about the town's municipal hierarchy.  Also, it is voiced in such a way that you can hear the parentheses. 

Went flashin' on down to the swimmin' pool

To give them Critters a citation
By the time we arrived, it was too damn late
Them critters is all had their pants down

So, pants still on... just down.

Them dogs was tearin' the bathhouse apart,
And they's after the fish in the fish pond!

As this song is the source for literally everything I know about Ouray, I'm perplexed and intrigued by the idea of a community pool with a bathhouse and a fishpond.  Were the people of Colorado still bathing communally in the 60's?

I says, "Roy, you get the one in the silver T-shirt
"And I'll get the rest with a net.
"We gonna have a jail full a' naked Crispy Critters

So, pants off... not down.

"And a drip-dry space cadet."

There is an interlude with sound effects that loosely describe the ensuing mayhem.  I have not taken the step of listening to this section carefully, which may seem surprising, considering the ungodly amount of time the rest of this has obviously taken.  

Well, we gave 'em hell, but we lost the war
'Cause them Critters outnumbered us

I've searched these lyrics for evidence of any townspeople other than Roy and the narrator (who must actually be the Marshall) and found none.  I'd always thought there were more people trying to put down the occupation.

So they moved in and set up camp
And they lived in that purple school bus

The narrator's sense of defeat is subtly communicated by the fact that he abandons the rhyme scheme from this point forward.

Six weeks later, there was nothin' in town
But eighty-four dogs and a head shop
Sellin' dried up weeds, and sunflower seeds,
And astrological postcards
Yeah, Critters took over the City Council
And the dogs all barked their brains out
And the whole damn town was Crispy Critters
And the mayor was a space cadet.

*               *               *

I wish you many more miles, C. W. -- and may all of life's weigh stations be closed.




[1] p.513 Partridge, Eric; Dalzell, Tom & Victor, Terry The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English 2006 Taylor & Francis