Ghastly Genius

Just heard this gem from 1966 for the first time. The song is nothing special until it gets to the title hook, which is a simple couplet that is both incredibly awkward and instantly memorable:

you're so mystifyingly glad
I'm Mr. Dieingly sad.

The tortured syntax and that ugly ugly adverb (luckily, when you listen to "dieingly," you can understand it; when you read it, it looks like a typo or a Jumble puzzle waiting to be anagramed into the correct answer... Why'd they go with that weird spelling, instead of "dyingly"? Well, that looks weird, too, i guess.) The internal rhyme of "mysti-" and "Mister" would be clever if it weren't clumsy, forced, and fakey. And yet...

Here's the original group, The Critters (named, yes, after the breakfast cereal Crispy Critters), with their big hit, "Mr. Dieingly Sad." Like a great car wreck, I can't keep myself away.



The video is as dull as the song, but it does have charming youths from another era (the young are always more charming when they aren't contemporary) and some amusing subtexts. Watch the poor sap trying to clap energetically to what is essentially a dirge. He keeps looking around as if to say “Come everyone, clap along!” and later “Hey, why aren’t you clapping too, kids?” and then, finally, “Damn it, I started this song clapping and that’s how’s going to end it, because otherwise I’d look silly, do you hear me, silly.”