Music / The Arrogant Worms

The Arrogant Worms are a comedy folk trio from Alberta, Canada Kingston, Ontario. They gained massive popularity on the internet in the early 2000s, with their catchy tunes and hilarious jabs at Canadian culture. They got so popular that another Canadian comedy group, Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie, has had the misfortune of their entire catalog being attributed to the Worms.

Discography

• 1992 The Arrogant Worms
• 1994 Russell's Shorts
• 1995 C'est Cheese
• 1997 Live Bait
• 1997 Christmas Turkey
• 1999 Dirt!
• 2001 Idiot Road
• 2002 Gift Wrapped
• 2003 Semi-Conducted (Live Album with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra)
• 2004 Toast!
• 2006 Beige
• 2008 Torpid
• 2013 Hindsight 20/20
• 2014 SPACE
• 2016 The First Farewell Album

While their songs about Canada, such as "Canada's Really Big" or "We Are The Beaver", are among their most popular, they've also had hits with songs about other subjects, such as vegetable rights activism ("Carrot Juice is Murder"), sports ("Me Like Hockey"), various animals ("I Am Cow," "Billy The Theme Park Shark"), and little-known relatives of famous Biblical people ("Jesus' Brother Bob"), to name a few. Their music consists of style parodies of nearly every music genre one can think of, from folk to Eighties pop to country to Celtic, and even children's music ("Rippy The Gator"). Arrogant Worms concerts are always somewhere between jam session and stand up comedy.

Magic: The Gathering did a Shout-Out to them in the form of the card Arrogant Wurm.

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The Arrogant Worms contains examples of:

• The Alleged Car: "Car Full Of Pain" is about one of these, and the titular Plymouth Horizon of "Horizon" seemed to be well on its way before a violent death.
• And That's Terrible: From "Carrot Juice Is Murder":
  Lead: Carrot juice constitutes murder
  Background: And that's a real crime
• Anti-Christmas Song: Their Christmas album, Christmas Turkey is full of them.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In "I Ran Away", the insults thrown at the protagonist's girlfriend include "She's a fat ugly tramp", "She smells like peanut butter", "She's a loser", "She's pedantic", and "She's a mediocre soccer player".
• Artistic License – Geography: The Saskatchewan River doesn't actually flow through Regina, despite what "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" says:
  Farmers, bar your doors
  When you see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores!
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Their "Gaelic Song" is a perfect example.
• Audience Participation Song:
  • "Rippy the Gator" and "Rocks and Trees" are straight examples.
  • "Jesus' Brother Bob" has a couple of lines that tends to be spoken by the audience, taking the place of various crowds that come seeking Christ.
  • "Mounted Animal Nature Trail" is a bizarre example, as the animals in the song are dead and shouldn't make noise, but the crowd will make the noises anyway just so the Worms will make fun of them for doing so.
• Ballad of X: "The Ballad of Dan."
• Boy Band: Their song of the same title.
• Chainsaw Good: "Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw."
• Children Are a Waste: With a title like "Go to Sleep Little Leech," was there ever any doubt? It's sung from the perspective of the child too, for added hilarity.
  "Go to sleep little leech
  You've sucked mama dry
  Made her more crazy with every cry
  Why weren't we more careful than night on the beach?
  So go to sleep, go to sleep, little leech
  ...
  Go to sleep little leech
  You've sucked us both dry
  Stolen our money and will to survive
  But you're old enough now to get kicked out on the street!
  So go to sleep, go to sleep, little leech!
  ...
  Go to sleep little leech
  You're driving me mad!
  Sometimes I dream that I'm not your real dad
  It's 5 in the morning, I work in the day
  Go to sleep little leech or get sold on eBay!"
• Christmas Songs: A whole album.
• Cool Boat: "The Wolfe Island Ferry" is about a very nice ferry called the Wolfe Island Ferry.
• Cool Car: Winnebago. It has a pool for a humpback whale on the roof. Next to a tennis court. And helipad. Among other things.
• Dirty Coward: The protagonist of "I Ran Away."
• Disproportionate Retribution: "Carrot Juice is Murder" mentions assaulting a man for eating celery and murdering five farmers.
• Drives Like Crazy: Pretty much everyone in the song "Idiot Road".
• Enemy Mime: The narrator of "Mime Abduction" is kidnapped and then tortured and then forced to jam Cajun music and then after a brief altercation, escape from a gang of angry mimes. They force him to perform skits (including the Invisible Box Routine) and play the accordion for them while they sit in invisible chairs drinking imaginary tea.
• Food Songs Are Funny: "Carrot Juice is Murder", parodying veganism.
• Hillbilly Horrors: "Goin' Huntin'!" is about a bunch of rednecks going hunting. They're going to kill *something* and don't care what it is, up to and including the neighbor's children.
• Historical Character's Fictional Relative: "Jesus' Brother Bob", where the titular character is either mistaken for Jesus or the subject of disappointment when crowds come seeking his much better-known brother.
• Hurricane of Puns: "Jerry Came Home Headless" is this.
• Incredibly Long Note: Trevor Strong at the end of "Dangerous".
• Inherently Funny Words: "A Night in Dildo". Seriously, with Newfoundland place names like that, how could they resist?
• Intercourse with You: "Log In To You" is this done in computer geek jargon.
• Kill It with Water: "Pressure Washer", taken to its (il)logical extreme.
  I got a Pressure Washer, I like it a lot, 'cause it makes cleaning destructive!
• Long-Runner Line-up: The Worms have been a group since 1991, and Trevor Strong, Mike McCormick and Chris Patterson have all been there since 1995 (Patterson joined that year, and John Whytock left). This is not counting backup musicians, of which there have been several in the years between 1995 and 2010.
• Look Behind You: The narrator of "I Ran Away" outwits the devil himself by saying, "Look over there!" and fleeing.
  I'm hopin' that the devil smokes two packs a day, 'cause my day of reckoning is here and I ran away!
• Losing Your Head: "Jerry Came Home Headless". Jerry got decapitated while bumbling around town one day and didn't notice until he came home and tried to fix his hair.
• Lyrical Dissonance: All over the place.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: "Rippy the Gator went chomp chomp chomp!"
• Mister Muffykins: The Chihuahua in "Gonna Kill The Dog Next Door" literally drives the narrator Ax-Crazy.
• Non-Appearing Title: "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" and "Tokyo Love Song" are two examples.
• Ode to Intoxication:
  • "Drink With Me" from the Idiot Road album.
  • "Bottle of Booze" from Toast.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: The title character of "Jesus' Brother Bob".
  If you haven't heard of me, I wouldn't be surprised
  I bet you know my relatives, their names will never die
  My mother is a saint and my brother is a god
  But all I am is Jesus' brother Bob.
• Pirate Song: "The Last Pirate of Saskatchewan" describes how a down-and-out farmer is lured into piracy in the modern era.
• Protest Song: Parodied with "Carrot Juice is Murder".
• Rage Breaking Point: The Mountie from "The Mountie Song" is faced with a barrage of questions from a crowd of tourists, starting with the hackneyed ("Hey, Mountie, where's your man? Haven't you got him yet?") and proceeding to become so inane ("What's your shoe size? What does your cat look like? Why don't you drive a little car like the Shriners?") that he screams in anguish.
• Rap Is Crap: Mentioned in the song "My Voice is Changing":
  Pretty soon I bet I'll be right into heavy metal,
  but my parents say "At least it isn't rap"
• Rousing Lullaby: "Go to Sleep Little Leech" is all about how [[Children Are a Waste the child being sung to is a maddening, parasitic burden. The second verse is even about how happy Mike's dad was to be able to kick him out of the house.
• Self-Demonstrating Song: The aforementioned "Song Inside My Head".
• Self-Deprecation: Often in their live acts, but the song "Steel-Drivin' Man" is notable because even in the album version the title character — a lazy, alcoholic railroad worker who never actually works and only keeps his job because he works for his father — is named "Mike McCormick," and performed by singer ... Mike McCormick. With the aforementioned father performed by Mike's real-life father.
• Self-Titled Album: Their first album.
• Squashed Flat: "Tokyo Love Song":
  Her death was unintentional, but now she's two-dimensional. My angel is truly in Heaven.
• Take That!:
  • On their live DVD, Semi-Conducted, a performance of "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" with full symphony back-up concludes with Mike saying, "Let's see Captain Tractor cover that!" ... referring to the cover version that is now (arguably) more well-known than the original.
  • "Mounted Animal Nature Trail" includes the lyric "It's not like other theme parks, the mice won't say hello..." which is followed by a falsetto impersonation of Mickey Mouse saying "Hi! Give me all your money!"
• Title Confusion: Some people think that "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" is called "Pirates of the Saskatchewan." Despite the obvious pun, this is not the case.
• Your Mime Makes It Real: The narrator of "Mime Abduction" escapes by pouring pretend marbles out on the floor and making himself a door.

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