Fridge / The Bonzo Dog Band

• The song "Death Cab For Cutie". One could realize that what the doo-wop singers were really singing, instead of generic doo-wop nonsense (best transcribed as 'Veygahran doo-wah'), was baby, don't do it.
  • Also, Humanoid Boogie has its own — despite having read the lyrics, there's a preference to hear the chorus as 'Some people say they're glad, some people say annoyed, but you know, ain't many tryin' to say they're humanoid' instead of what it actually goes like. Why? Because if you hear it like that, it's easy to interpret it as a group of aliens coming to Earth and trying to ask people if they're, well, humans, using the nearest socially-acceptable term for 'what are you' — 'how are you'. Finding no people answering with 'Human', they make the song to put out a sort of wanted-poster for humans on the radio, like the rat catcher of Hamelin...
  • "Mr. Apollo". The song reflects the old magazine ads where a bullied weakling takes a body building course, takes care of his tormentors and gets the girl. It was a real thing. But it could be misunderstood as a regular, kind-of-campy song about physical fitness — until one listens to the lyrics, whereupon the idea that it might be about bullied nerds dreaming up their own fantasy world. This put a dryly sarcastic spin on the tidbit of the chorus that went "Cause everybody knows that a healthy body makes a healthy mind", and was reinforced by Vivian Stanshall bursting into the chorus, hysterically yelling "And you can—beat up bullies 'til they cry! Oh crikey! Oh jove! Let's go you rotter—oh, don't punish me—!".
  • "Noises For The Leg", at the end, has the sound of a balloon losing air wildly darting from left to right stereo. It would sound weird at first — until there's a thought of an old cartoon tidbit of a balloon flying wildly through the air after getting its knot untied.
  • If you search for The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band on Spotify, the song order is so that "Look At Me I'm Wonderful" comes right before "Jazz — Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold" and "I Left My Heart (In San Francisco)" comes right before "Dr. Jazz". It's a choosing to interpret that as an Small Name, Big Ego of a singer doing a pep talk to himself before going out on stage — and when he's out there, his band members upstage him by not letting him get a word in with their constant playing. He manages to get one song, but before he can finish it, they start with their nonsense again. Frustrated, he leaves.
  • "Laughing Blues". Just traditional oddballery at first thought. Then one realizes 'Blues' can also be said to describe depression, and depression is sometimes a sign of madness, making the title "Laughing Mad". Which you can say about many Bonzo songs.
  • "Joke Shop Man". It might sound like a fairly regular jingle-type song — until the music sounded slightly sadder at the verse "Joke Shop Man, help me if you can / it's really oh-so-hard to understand". The 'joke shop man' is an optimist, or a fellow with humor, and the singer is depressed with the world. There are no words toward the end of the song, with only silly noises, because of one of two causes — either the joke shop man is helping the singer, well, understand, or the singer has killed himself.
  • "Quiet Talks And Summer Walks". Annoying with how the voice was barely audible over the music...and then one would think back to the title. Also, it finishes with a sound not that unlike a buzzsaw or similar — the forest the singer was walking through is getting cut down as he walks.
  • "Busted". One would think of the song as mostly nonsense...until you hear one verse that went "I think it'd do more good to try and understand the other guy". That combined with the chorus made me realize that the singer had been, well, busted for a crime (or just busted up in the skull, for even more simplicity, or busted like a toy, or even bested) and driven to madness by the pressure put on him by society to either reform or prove he didn't do it (or prove he really was as good as he seemed, et cetera). All he wants is some sympathy, but due to society stamping labels on him, he never gets it.
    • Or, considering that Vivian Stanshall, the singer, does his "Look At Me I'm Wonderful" voice, you can even think it's the same singer from "Look At Me", busted as a fraud/hack/with no skill.
  • "Hello Mabel". A thought that the fact that the trumpets got more triumphant toward the end of the song was just traditional progression exaggeration — plus, an annoyance with how the repetition went on and on, in comparison to the other Bonzo songs (also, the 'chaperone' part implied she already had a boyfriend). Then a realization that the singer had to ask again and again for Mable to come with him, in more and more exaggerated ways. His request for her to "leave your chaperone / so we can be alone" references that he just wants her to walk out on her own, either so he can observe her or so he can ask her to give him up...and the calmer end to the song suggests there was a happy ending for the two.
  • "The Trouser Press". Your everyday pop novelty song, really, until two things — that the line "Oh, you're so savage, Roger", spoken from a decidedly male voice, wasn't just a one-shot joke with random name — Roger-Ruskin Spear was one of the fellows in the band and the one who had discovered them, saying "I couldn't believe anyone was that bad" before changing his mind. The line could have simply referenced his savage critique. And the second thing was that it had featured a solo on an actual trouser press.
  • "We Are Normal". There's the slow, strange, spoken intro — which that was what it was supposed to do. The song began with a uncomprehendable bubbling sound, — until it's understood it was a metaphor for a new type of people (or, heck, aliens) bubbling up to the surface. The title, too — it's not meant to be 'We are ordinary', they actually call themselves 'Normal'. The spoken words were basically jeers, with lines such as "Well, here come some normals! They look like...normal..." and "Look at his head! 'E—'es got a head on him like a rabbit!" These continued through slow pace, as a slow, fast-forwarding sound appeared, which turned into a quicker fast-forwarding sound, which turned into a jittery rapid fast fast-forwarding — until it became the actual song. This represents the years of insults that seem to pass so quickly, so uneventfully — up until rebellion, as the song itself is rather rocky, the verses going mostly "We are normal, and we want our freedom!" And, finally, the song closes with around fifteen or so seconds of ocean-against-the-beach noises, calling back to the bubbly opening. In the end, despite a few new bubbles, the ocean is big and alike.
  • "By A Waterfall". The strangely distant-sounding 'Yoohoohoohoo' of the chorus after the singer exclaims 'All together now' can be explained this way — the singer is a Third-Person Person, and is actually singing by a waterfall, out on a cliff. The distance is due to echo.