Bone-us Tracks: 20 More Dog Songs Worth Checking Out
“Rockin’ Rollin’ Rover,” Bill Haley & the Comets
“I Found My Best Friend in the Dog Pound,” Burl Ives
“I Love My Dog,” Cat Stevens
“Old Blue,” James Taylor
“Hey Bulldog,” The Beatles
“Me and You and a Dog Named Boo,” Lobo
“Gonna Buy Me a Dog,” The Monkees
“The Puppy Song,” Mary Hopkin
“Dirty Ol’ Egg-Sucking Dog,” Johnny Cash
“Evelyn, a Modified Dog,” Frank Zappa
“Clyde,” J.J. Cale
“I’ll Take the Dog,” Jean Shephard & Ray Pillow
“J’ai Retrouvé Mon Chien,” France Gall
“Fluffy,” Gloria Balsam
“Three Legs,” Paul McCartney
“Jet,” Paul McCartney & Wings
“All Good Things,” Klaatu
“Death of a Martian,” Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Ol’ Red,” Blake Shelton
“Who Let the Dogs Out,” Baha Men
The Genuine Canine Chorus
Back in 1955, a disgruntled recording engineer created a novelty sensation with The Singing Dogs.
Carl Weismann hated dogs. Or at least he hated their barking. An audio engineer for Danish State Radio in Copenhagen back in the ’50s, Weismann specialized in recording bird song. Finches, jays, swallows—he captured them all on tape. But whether he was in the field or a city park, there often seemed to be a dog around, waiting to ruin his recording.
An adept editor, Weismann snipped the offending mutts from his tapes using a pair of scissors (that’s how they did it back before computers). Eventually, Weismann had a pile of discarded dog voices. Rather than toss them, he decided to have some fun.
Pasting together barks of varying tones (then goosing them with a speed-control), he set them against simple musical tracks of five songs, including “Jingle Bells” and “Oh Susanna.” The resulting record, attributed to The Singing Dogs, sold 500,000 copies worldwide.
Fifteen years later, New York DJ Howard Smith rediscovered the record and played it as a gag. The phones lit up. Callers claimed their own dogs were singing along. The album became an even bigger hit. Now part of the yuletide canon, The Singing Dogs (reportedly led by two German Shepherds and a Poodle) are bona fide platinum-selling artists.
The original RCA Victor 45 rpm Singing Dogs record included Jingle Bells as part of a medley. Later re-issues extended the song to about two minutes; Oh, Susannah was the flip side of both versions.
In the 1970's, a "kiddie" record label, "Mr. Pickwick" released an LP of other Singing Dogs material under the title "Barking Their Way Into Your Heart...The Singing Dogs."