Mid-century cultural tectonics: Unpacking the ‘Ying Tong Song’ core sample

Abstract

The Goons’ ‘Ying Tong Song’ is an unlikely candidate for a popular music chart hit. Yet it held a place in the British top ten for six weeks in 1956. On the face of it, this novelty record presents a musical variation on eccentric Goon themes that had become familiar to British radio audiences over the preceding five years of Goon Shows: silly voices, absurd situations, non sequiturs, sound effects, chaos and seeming non-sense. On closer examination, however, the ‘Ying Tong Song’ reveals itself to be an encapsulation of defining conflicts, phobias and preoccupations of the mid-1950s, such that it takes on the character of a geological core sample. By analysing the ‘Ying Tong Song’ according to its principal operative contexts (British national history, cultural history, musical tastes, radio humour, language and humour theory), this article unpacks key layers of signification that define the Ying Tong phenomenon.