What Parry Gripp taught me about titles
How a novelty songwriter shines light on creating appellations for our stories
I unearthed a totally delightful pop culture connection this week: our son’s most beloved novelty song artist, Parry Gripp, is also the lead singer and guitarist for the band Nerf Herder. Nerf Herder wrote and performed the theme song to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, my all-time favorite show on TV. Parry Gripp would already be my hero for co-creating that perfectly imperfect theme song, but as a parent, I’ve learned to appreciate his kids’ music, as well.
Our oldest introduced us to Parry Gripp’s novelty music by requesting Alexa to play “It’s Raining Tacos.” To our amazement, it was a real song—apparently a preschool dance party hit. Now, our youngest who’s obsessed with Parry Gripp. Our car rides and YouTube plays are dominated by tunes like “Narwhal Eating a Bagel” and “Cat Flushing a Toilet.”
Gripp’s songs are catchy and simple-sounding in a way that appears effortless, but as all creators know, it takes a *lot* of work to come across as effortless. Gripp is prolific, with well over 200 animated kids’ songs on YouTube. No matter whether songs about hamsters on pianos are your cup of tea, we will all agree that Gripp wrote those hundreds of songs—and gave them titles—and here is where I’m really impressed with Parry Gripp: the titles of his songs comprise a critical tool to Gripp’s branding and smash hit success.
Since I’m in the unusual and (probably?) temporary position of being an expert on Parry Gripp’s top hits novelty song catalog, I want to analyze a sector of those titles and figure out why they’re so impactful. Maybe there are some lessons I can take away as a writer who struggles to title her own fiction.
Titles encapsulate story
Parry Gripp is writing songs that two-three-and four-year-olds love to dance to. His subjects span snacks, animals, holidays, and technology/gaming/spec fictional pop culture. Let’s break down a few categories to see how the title serves the song.
“Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom”
I can tell you this about Parry Gripp: he loves to celebrate food. I mean, the guy wrote a song called “Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom.”
Sometimes his odes are simple celebrations of beloved comfort food, like “Maca Maca Maca Macaroni and Cheese,” in which the refrain repeats: “it’s my favorite thing to eat.” Tunes like “Breakfast Burrito,” feature vivid first person sensory descriptions of the experience of delighting in said burrito’s consumption.
A lot of Gripp’s songs are titled much like a recipe, but what happens when he adds some nuance? Often, he adds verb. For example, let’s say Parry Gripp wanted to compose an ode to tacos. He’d have called it “Tacos.” Now, what if he wanted to stir in a dollop of fantastical storytelling with his lust for shells, meat, lettuce, and cheese? Like when Gripp paired the verb “raining” with “tacos,” and created a smash hit gastronomical fantasy epic.
“Raining Tacos” imagines its protagonist looking up to the sky, opening their mouth, and letting the rain of goodies pour in. What a yummy fantasy, indeed. One of Gripp’s followups to the hits is “Hailing Taquitos,” in which the mood is quite different. “Ow, my eye.” Sharp, pointy taquitos hail down from the sky, and this time instead of being a dream, the comestible precipitation is—and I’m directly quoting here—“apocalypse-y.” Fortunately, the harmful hail is mitigated by the sharpshooting Tacobot 3,000, whose ray at these pointy missiles into delightful tacos, thus, saving humanity.
“Pancake Robot” is also combines gastronomy and sci fi. Complete with a maple syrup cannon and butter pat blaster, the Pancake Robot serves up all you can eat when he comes to town. Here, instead of a verb paired with a food to encapsulate a story, we focus on a spec fictional character. Notice how short Gripp keeps his title. Had I titled this song, the pop culture reference of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” combined with the fact that the first line of the song is “The Pancake Robot is coming to town” would have lured me to title the song: “The Pancake Robot is Coming to Town.” Fortunately, Parry Gripp is a wiser titler than me. What he really wanted to express is Pancake (yum-yum) and Robot. The setting isn’t important, so Gripp keeps it simple, helping listeners young and old to instantly grasp the conceit of the song before a single note or lyric is ever played.
Spec fiction songs
We’ve already met the Tacobot 3,000 and the Pancake Robot, but science fiction and fantasy fans, strap in, because Gripp has more fun where that came from. “Space Unicorn,” a truly lovely ballad in which a unicorn soars through the stars to deliver rainbows, and “Neon Pegasus,” one of Gripp’s most intricate storytelling songs, in which Neon Pegasus learns to soar with his sparkly dreams despite his broken heart. These songs focus on character, and are titled with characters and a description of their setting.
Among Gripp’s spooky cannon are included “Haunted Cupcake” and “Spooky Fruit Cup.” Here, Gripp combines his obsession with snacks with some very forthright adjectives that describe the mood—aka, haunted and spooky. The music goes all fun-creepy-Halloween-y (Halloween-y is my word, blame me, not Parry Gripp). And we know exactly what to expect from the title. Probably my favorite spooky Parry Gripp song is “I’m a ghost.” Not only is does the music portray spookiness with dramatic perfect fifth drops, but I love how the protagonist of the songs, whose intention is to introduce himself and his nature to the listener, is perfectly mirrored by the title.
“Fuzzy Fuzzy Cute Cute”
When he isn’t writing songs about snacks and spooks, Gripp is writing about animals. Here’s a few of our son’s faves:
“Cat Flushing a Toilet”
“Hamster on a Piano”
“Hug a Turtle”
“Baby Bunny” (my personal favorite)
“Oh Potato Dog”
“Alligator Crocodile”
“Young Squirrel Talking About Himself”
“Boogie Boogie Hedgehog”
I could go on. Believe me. I adore “Baby Bunny,” but at first glance, I wondered why such an economical songwriter would write baby bunny when bunny kinda already implies baby—but now I see why. The song, like its title, is all about cuteness overload, so he repeats the concept. “Fuzzy Fuzzy Cute Cute” creates a similar effect.
On the other hand, “Cat Flushing a Toilet” tells us (at least us pet-parents) that this song will be a slice-of-life vignette about what it’s really like to share your home with an animal. “Hug a Turtle” cues us in that Gripp is going to share his love of his favorite type of Testudines. “Alligator Crocodile” economically informs us we’re abut to learn the difference between these oft-confused reptiles. “Boogie Boogie Hedgehog” sets up for the style of music and getting down with a pet whose head is in a toilet paper tube.
How to Title like a Smash Hit Pro
Part of Parry Gripp’s branding success comes from writing lots of songs focused on clear special interests, and then combining those interests in a variety of endearing ways. Each and every Parry Gripp title signals at least one of his defined special interests, while avoiding the pitfall of overloading listener expectations.
Parry Gripp manages expectation overload by keeping his titles short. He rarely highlights more than two special interests in one title. That hamster on the piano? He’s also eating popcorn, but Gripp doesn’t title his song “Hamster on a piano eating popcorn.” Instead, he grounds you with character, adds a setting, and stops. However, when Gripp wants purposely overload listener’s brains to squee them with adorableness, he employs purposeful word repetition.
Gripp reserves epic-sounding titles for his lovely ballads, and cues us into quotidian celebrations with simple diction and standalone testaments to our everyday delights, like macaroni and cheese. He never shies away from establishing mood from before the listener hears the first note.
I write fantasy fiction, not novelty music, but studying the vast catalog of an artist who titles well teaches me to be more intentional with how I approach my story titles. If Parry Gripp’s success in our household (and in many others) is any indication, his careful attention to titles is worth it.