Today, the most popular ice cream truck song in the country is a half-minute loop of “The Entertainer,” according to Mark Nichols of Nichols Electronics, the Minnesota company that makes most of the nation’s ice cream truck sound systems. His father started the firm in 1957 after inventing a transistorized replacement for the clockwork-style machine that used to be the norm.This video captures the same song our local truck plays - "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin - which is a nice enough melody, but maddening enough under these circumstances to make me want to throw things at the truck.
“The technology has changed, but the songs have hardly changed at all in a century,” Nichols said. “They’re all old, all simple and all in the public domain. We go out of our way to avoid violating anybody’s copyright.”
Also echoing around American cul-de-sacs each summer, he said, are “Turkey in the Straw,” “Sailing, Sailing,” “Little Brown Jug” and “Camptown Races.”
Grumble, grumble...
The "Good Humor" label is surely meant to be ironic.
ReplyDeleteDo what you need to, but find 'Comfort and Joy.' The ice cream truck music features prominently.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087072/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_and_Joy_(1984_film)
In Tampa they have ice cream trucks all year, and at some very strange times of the day. It's odd indeed to hear "Turkey in the Straw" through your open window at 9pm in January.
ReplyDeleteThis was an annual rant on a yahoo group I belonged to in the 90s. There was much discussion of assorted forms of vehicular mahem.
ReplyDeleteI remember they played "Polly Wolly Doodle" & "Pop Goes the Weasel" when I was a kid. Pity the poor driver who has to listen to it all day long!
ReplyDeleteI think that the Israeli sound pollution law will not allow ice cream trucks that play such loud melodies.
ReplyDeleteLately, leaf blowers has been banned here.
Here in Australia (or Sydney at least) they ALL play Greensleeves.
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in Columbus, there was one particular ice cream truck that came into our neighborhood that played Korobeiniki, which is more commonly known as the Tetris song. That was a good ice cream truck.
ReplyDeleteAs if the music wasn't enough it used to make our dogs howl whenever the song started up. They kept howling as though they were wolves for quite a while. I think it was the only bright spot for the beleaguered driver.
ReplyDeleteWith top temps of 16°C yesterday, I don't think we're likely to get ice cream trucks around here at this time of year. However, when we do get them, they seem to always play Greensleeves. "Dun dun da-dun, da-da dun-te-dun, da-da dun te dun, da-da dun te dun..."
ReplyDeleteJen in Oz
Oh how I yearn for the simple stupid melody of an ice cream truck...
ReplyDeleteIn Korea, fruit vendors (or sometimes random assorted furniture vendors) will drive their trucks at a crawl down all the backstreets, usually at 5:00 or 6:00am. They have megaphones mounted on the outside of their trucks, which blare a single phrase I do not understand on a 5 second loop. The phrase is prerecorded so there's zero variation; it has a lilt to it which for some reason makes it extra infuriating; and inexplicably, they always blast it at the outer reaches off their megaphone's capabilities, so it's usually hash and tinged with gravel as they slowly blow their own speaker out.
>:(
I remember reading a short story about a college student who drove an ice cream truck one summer. He had multiple tunes to choose from and hated all of them, so he would play the single beep that the truck would make backing up. He pretended it was the latest composition by Philip Glass.
ReplyDeleteI used to have this problem. Then I started going out to the truck with a pad and pencil and demanding to see their vendor license, and taking down vehicle license number and city sticker number.
ReplyDeleteThey don't come down our street any more. :-)
HEY - you kids! Get off my lawn!
ReplyDelete:)
Confirm word: AUGBOP (HA!)
What other business in the USA is allowed to disturb the peace like this? If the boyscouts had trumpets or the mormons a boom box or the jehova's witnesses sang from door to door we would fix the zoning codes immediately. Yet these junk food vendors freely blare garbage day in and out luring kids towards their crappy food choices. ...and then there are the collisions....
ReplyDeleteWell in Singapore and some other parts in South East Asia, the ice cream vendors just ring a hand held bell.
ReplyDelete(http://www.allbeautytools.com/pro_small/hand_held_bell.jpg)
I remember the good 'ole days when the truck would just jingle a bell.
ReplyDeleteMy neighborhood was more on a backroad and not populated enough to warrant a visit from the ice cream truck. The next neighborhood over, however, was. As a result, when we heard that familiar jingle, we had to spring into action:
1. BEG the parents for ice cream money!!!!
2. With said money in hand, sprint at Olympic speeds, vaulting over fences and streams, tearing through back yards.
3. Maintain a constant state of prayer that we would make it in time to catch the truck!
Sadly, eight times out of ten, we wouldn't make it in time. The truck only showed up a couple of times in that area during the summer, so it required herculean efforts to catch it, making it the supreme treat. Just to add insult to injury, a friend lived in a very densely populated neighborhood next to a small park/playground. The ice cream truck would be parked outside his house for two hours at a time!
Now, at the age of forty-seven, I still perk up when I hear an ice cream truck. And it is still in another neighborhood! Yet, I can't stand the cheesy, eight-bit sound tracks they run.
Bring back the bells!
It's not the song that bothers me, it's the worn out, distorted tape loop.
ReplyDeleteVisiting Oaxaca, Oaxaca Mexico and there are many vendors that drive down the streets... for potable water and a few other services. They all have their gimmicks. Some yell out something constantly, others drag chains behind the vehicles, and others have bells they ring. Or a combination of various noise making techniques.
ReplyDeleteCan anyone identify this song?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NncPLiKlPk&feature=related
I would really appreciate help on this, it's been driving me crazy for like 2 years! I had it stuck in my head, and then I couldn't figure out where I knew it from until I heard an ice cream truck.
My friends were recording their band's album and an ice cream truck parked right outside their house blasting away. At the end of the album, there's a recording of the ice cream truck song (the one that goes 'hello') and them cracking up.
I think the answer is posted at the link you provided.
ReplyDeleteTwo tales...
ReplyDeleteFirst - a friend who often had a load of mums and toddlers in the house used to suddenly burst out singing when they heard the ice-cream van to drown out the "music" so the kids didn't demand any.
Second - when that one wore out they told the kids that the music was the ice-cream van saying "Sorry, run out today, back tomorrow". That one worked for over a year.
'What other business in the USA is allowed to disturb the peace like this? '
ReplyDeletehttp://www.loudpipesandparts.com/about_us/ and pretty much everyone else who sells things to make other things louder.
bah.
Before he grew up, our son would peek over the top of the fence at the ice cream truck and, at the top of his lungs yell, "Wait!" He would then duck down as the truck stopped. Thirty seconds or so would go by, the truck would start and he'd pop up and yell, "Wait!!" Again, he would duck down as the truck stopped.
ReplyDeleteHis record had to be almost five minutes.
I hate these trucks with a red-hot passion. My apartment overlooks a park. With six trucks, each here for ten minutes six times a day on the weekends -- well, that pretty well shoots it, and there is NO ESCAPE.
ReplyDeleteTry hearing "Pop Goes The Weasel" for a half a day. Yet at town meetings, some doddering old fool will get up and say it reminds him of his youth, and how can you hate ice cream, and these fathers need to make a living.
So I have to listen to their advertising all summer long?
Seriously opposed to this, and the usual tools of democracy are not able to provide relief (he said menacingly).
When I lived in Scotstoun in Glasgow, teo years ago, the icecream van just made a piercing whistle.
ReplyDeleteOh my god, I'm so in your camp. I HATE them. They park in front of my house and I want to open fire. I have a 5 year old girl who doesn't need to be eating crap. Just go away! After one particularly long stop in front of my house I went out and yelled at them with great color and passion, I made my concerns vividly clear. it seemed to help. They at least move a block down the road before parking.
ReplyDeleteI'm with the other Aussies, it's definitely Greensleeves. We don't seem to have quite the quantity of competition, thank heavens. So it's not too bad, and even though I don't like soft icecream it still makes me think of summertime.
ReplyDeleteThe Home Icecream man though, just rings a bell, and has all sorts of "grown up" icecreams. YUM.
You think these are annoying? What about car alarms? Which I wouldn't mind, but I've heard that they have not been shown to be effective in preventing auto theft. In fact, the pros use the noise to cover the sound of breaking glass.
ReplyDelete