The Stripper
"The Stripper" is an instrumental composed by David Rose and recorded in 1962. It evinces a jazz influence with especially prominent trombone lines, and evokes the feel of music used to accompany striptease artists.
The song came to prominence by chance. David Rose had recorded Ebb Tide as an A-side of a record. His record company, MGM, wanted to get the record on the market quickly, but they discovered they had no B-side for it. Rose was away at the time the need for the B-side song surfaced. An MGM office boy was given the job of going through some of Rose's tapes of unreleased material to find something that would work; he liked the song and chose it as the flip side for the record.[1]
The song reached number one on Billboard magazine's Pop Singles and Adult Contemporary charts in 1962.
The piece features in the films Slap Shot, Used Cars, The Full Monty and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit as well as TV series Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Persuaders, The Golden Girls, Maude, Coupling, Little Britain, Are You Being Served?, Keeping Up Appearances, Drawn Together, Black Books and Scrubs. It was also famously used in a parody by British comedy duo Morecambe and Wise, where they danced to the tune while making breakfast. A PG Tips tea commercial featured a parody of the Morcambe and Wise sketch with Johnny Vegas and Monkey making a cup of tea in a similar manner.
In the 1970s, English rock band The Sweet always used the original song as an intro to their performances.
American rock band Mötley Crüe occasionally used the original song as an intro during performances in the late 80s, most notably at the one-time Moscow Music Peace Festival which was held in August 1989.
Rod Stewart has also used this song as an intro on several tours, like on the Tonight I Am Yours-Tour.
A famous Noxzema shave-cream advertising campaign developed by the William Esty Advertising Agency used the piece as background music for a television commercial that featured Swedish model Gunilla Knutson telling men to “Take it off! Take it all off!”. Cut to closeups of the faces of men shaving with safety razors, the razor strokes coinciding with the emphatic parts of the tune.
The late professional wrestler, Rick Rude, utilized this as his theme song.
Neo-Burlesque chanteuse Dita Von Teese cites this as one of the best striptease songs of all time.
[edit] References
- ^ Bacon, James (21 July 1964). "Beatles Hit In New Film; Rose Is Happy". Gettysburg Times. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zh8mAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8P0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=879,2920440&dq=david+rose&hl=en. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
| Preceded by "I Can't Stop Loving You" by Ray Charles |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single July 7, 1962 (one week) |
Succeeded by "Roses Are Red (My Love)" by Bobby Vinton |
| Preceded by "I Can't Stop Loving You" by Ray Charles |
"Billboard" Easy Listening number-one single by David Rose July 7, 1962 (two weeks) |
Succeeded by "Roses Are Red (My Love)" by Bobby Vinton |
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