I live in a weird ice cream van black hole. The last place we live had them and that was only 5 blocks away (as the crow flies). Every year more families with kids move into the neighborhood and every summer I think the vans will expand their territory to cover us, but 10 years in and it hasn’t happened.
I need to start using “as the crow flies” more
All the ice cream vans that show up in my area play The Entertainer, idk if it’s just a local thing or if most ice cream vans in the UK play that one though
At one point, I heard our local ice cream truck playing Wintergatan - Marble Machine. I thought it was cute and kinda refreshing to hear a newer tune like that.
this should be the song that all ice trucks play, this is amazing
that’s a cracking tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q
I’m not sure what this one’s called but it’s very pulular in Mexico.
It’s kind of got a dreamy melancholy to it
Greensleeves boooooriiing
I fuckn love Greensleeves! Greensleeves is my JAM
Yeah, if you’re riding to Canterbury!
Greensleeves is the only ice cream van song I’ve heard in Australia.
There are three.
One plays “Brave Bells of Scotland” with the word “HELLO-O” yelled by a distorted female voice every so often.
One plays chiptune Christmas Carols all year round.
One plays a medley of old songs heavily featuring “Turkey in the Straw”.
“HELLO-O”
Christ that should be illlegal
Removed by mod
In Philadelphia PA we got Mr. Softee blasting this down the street.
Yup, that’s the one!
Yeah, Mr. Softee in San Francisco uses the same music. I don’t recognize it from anywhere else. It sounds like a music box, especially because many of the notes don’t hit the beats.
They have them in San Francisco? I didn’t know they existed until I moved up to the East Coast. I assume that Mr. Softee is where the Pete and Pete character Mr. Tastee comes from.
Mister Softee is headquartered in Runnymede, NJ so the east coast association makes sense. It’s a franchisor so there’s trucks in 18 states.
The Wikipedia article about them says the song is titled “Jingle and Chimes”, and it’s based on “The Whistler and his Dog”. There’s lyrics too!
It sounds almost like “Hail to the Bus Driver”
It reminds me of O Du Lieber Augustin. And it took me a really long time to figure out that title… I thought it was some well-known nursery rhyme melody, but it’s a 224 year old Viennese tune.
tangentially related: the football chant Who ate all the Pies? and the Mary Poppin’s song Step in Time! both share the same origin of an old Cockney song Knees Up Mother Brown
Apparently it was adapted to “Did you ever see a lassie?” which has much brighter and simpler lyrics than the original, which is very dark.
Apparently that turkey in the straw one is super racist- or rather the lyrics of the version that took off and led to ICT fame. I swear ours still plays it… I’ll have to listen closely next time I happen to hear it.
The first and natural inclination, of course, is to assume that the ice cream truck song is simply paying homage to “Turkey in the Straw,” but the melody reached the nation only after it was appropriated by traveling blackface minstrel shows. There is simply no divorcing the song from the dozens of decades it was almost exclusively used for coming up with new ways to ridicule, and profit from, black people.
Perhaps I’m naive. I looked up the lyrics and found one spot in them where, yes, for sure, that’s racist. However, it’s akin to Enie meenie miney moe, where a slight change could make the song suitable again.
I already posted the relevant bit above. The history of this song in ice cream trucks was absolutely racist.
Pop Goes the Weasel like this one (not mine)
Hello? and Im not the biggest fan. First time I heard it I was doing yard work with my headphones in and thought someone was trying to get my attention.
That’s the one they play in my area in Michigan, I really hate it
In my hometown they played the entertainer most of the time:
I was hoping for Adele.
My disapppintment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
I was hoping for Lionel Richie.
Yes, I was in fact looking for ice cream.
It’s not a van, it’s a dude on a modified bike-cart. He honks a bulb horn.
Turkey?
Los Angeles lol
Almost always Musicbox dancer for Cape Town, South Africa.
diddle doo doo doo diddle diddle diddle doo
diddle doo doo doo diddle diddle diddle doo
diddle doo doo doo diddle diddle diddle doo
diddle doo doo doo
The Farmer in the Dell?
Just dropping by to share the legendary
lmao, actually slapped
LMAO, my man co-opted an old racist tune. You go on with your bad self.
