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Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hi, my name is Robert Lamb, and this is The Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing on

mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.

In this episode of The Monster Fact, I'd like to continue our trend of discussing

monsters that originate in works of music, a following most recently an episode on the Gugu Muck.

Unsurprisingly, we turned to another classic novelty song and one that predates the Monster MASH by several years.

1958's The Purple People Eater, which along with 58's Witch Doctor, helped pave the way for even more popular novelty tracks, including Monster

Mesh, including Goo Muck, and so many others.

We have American singer-songwriter Sheb Wully to thank for the track, a successful and

highly prolific country and rock and roll performer whose acting credits include such films

as High Noon and the outlawed Josie

Wales. But for many, he might be most recognizable as the originator of the so-called Wilhelm

scream and this admittedly stupid song. The lyrics are pretty straightforward. I don't think I

really have to walk you through it. A single-eyed, single-horned, flying alien descends to Earth with only two goals in mind.

To eat purple people and to find success in a human rock and roll band.

I don't know if it manages to eat any purple people, but it does find success in a rock and roll band.

Again, no one is arguing that there's much to these lyrics, and yet a lot has been made out of

two key ambiguities in the lyrics. A lot of fun has been had with this. First of all, here's

the question. Is the creature's horn indeed a living bony protrusion from the skull, or is it a

musical instrument of some sort? Is it somehow both? Is it a musical instrument that grows out of its

...