Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills

"Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills"
Single by Ray Stevens
from the album 1,837 Seconds of Humor
B-side "Teen Years"
Released July 1961
Recorded 1961
Genre Pop, novelty
Length 2:26
Label Mercury Records
Songwriter(s) Ray Stevens
Producer(s) Shelby Singleton
Ray Stevens singles chronology
"Happy Blue Year"
(1960)		 "Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills"
(1961)		 "Scratch My Back (I Love It)"
(1961)

"Happy Blue Year"
(1960)		 "Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills"
(1961)		 "Scratch My Back (I Love It)"
(1961)

"Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills" is a novelty song written and performed by Ray Stevens. It was released as a single in 1961 and became Stevens' first Hot 100 single, peaking at #35 in September.[1] Its lyrics tell of a fictional "wonder drug" that, when taken in a daily dose, can cure myriad ailments, much in the same way unscrupulous patent medicine salesmen marketed their wares in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The song is also notable for having the longest title (104 characters) of any single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at the time of its release, a record it would hold until "Medley: Intro 'Venus' / Sugar Sugar / No Reply / I'll Be Back / Drive My Car / Do You Want to Know a Secret / We Can Work It Out / I Should Have Known Better / Nowhere Man / You're Going to Lose That Girl / Stars on 45" by the Stars on 45, a medley that was legally required to list all of the component songs as part of its official title for copyright reasons, was released over 20 years later. The song seems to be referenced by the rap group D12 in the song Purple Pills[2] and by Kritikal in "Green and Purple".

Chart run

Billboard Hot 100[3] (6 weeks, entered August 21): Reached #35

Cashbox[4] (8 weeks, entered August 19): 99, 81, 69, 59, 52, 42, 38, 61

References

  1. ↑ Whitburn, Joel (1992). Fred Weiler, ed. The Billboard Book of USA Top 40 Hits (5 ed.). Guinness. p. 438.
  2. ↑ Box Talent Agency
  3. ↑ Whitburn, Joel (1997). Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles. Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research Inc. p. 584. ISBN 0-89820-122-5.
  4. ↑ Hoffmann, Frank (1983). The Cash Box Singles Charts, 1950-1981. Metuchen, NJ & London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. p. 568.
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