Ten Favorite Insects and Creepy Crawly Things Songs: Cockroaches on Parade (#10)

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How about some snakes!!!! Bugs!!!! Things that Andrew Zimmern eats!!!! It's time for a look at my ten favorites that have an insect or some other creepy crawly thing in the title. The obvious song is in this countdown (finally!), and only one snake (sorry to disappoint the ZZ Top fans, but not that one ). Let's head to Chicago to start this. #10: Cockroaches on Parade - Harry Waller Let me begin with the most infamous Harry Waller story I know (since I truthfully don't know much about this Chicago-based folk singer/songwriter, except that he was part of the Old Town folk circle in the 70s that produced the likes of John Prine and Steve Goodman). In 1981, during the baseball strike, die-hard Cubs fan Steve Goodman wrote a song called "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request," which detailed a man asking for "a double-header funeral at Wrigley Field" and lamenting his lovable loser Cubs team with the chorus, "Do they still play the blues in Chicago when baseball season rolls around? When the snow melts away do the Cubbies still play in their ivy-covered burial ground?" Thankfully, that hilarious song is now forever dated ("the last time the Cubs won the National League pennant was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan") because the Cubs are 2016 World Series champions. However, part of that song had the dying Cub fan asking his friends, as part of his funeral, to "let my ashes blow in the beautiful snow from the prevailing 30-mile-an-hour southwest wind, and as my last remains go flying over the left field wall I'll bid the bleacher bums adieu." So, in 1988, four years after Steve Goodman lost his 15-year battle with leukemia, Steve's brother, David, and Harry Waller went to Wrigley Field and did just what the song said: they scattered some of Goodman's ashes. So, with that background, this song shouldn't surprise you. When he performed this on the Steve Goodman tribute album he referred to it as "the Chicago national anthem." Yeah, when the roaches slap you for spraying them you know that someone's gotta move, and it isn't going to be them! I lived in Hawaii, where cockroaches were horrible, so I can identify with this song. I hope you don't have a cockroach problem but that you do enjoy this funny tune. Cockroaches on Parade Written by Harry Waller Recorded by Harry Waller From A Tribute to Steve Goodman, 1985 They wipe their feet on your lunch meat: