Li'l Red Riding Hood
"Li'l Red Riding Hood" | ||||
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Cover artwork from the album Li'l Red Riding Hood | ||||
Single by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs | ||||
from the album Li'l Red Riding Hood | ||||
B-side | "Love Me Like Before" | |||
Released | June 1966 (1966) | |||
Genre | Garage rock | |||
Length | 2:35 | |||
Label | MGM | |||
Songwriter(s) | Ron Blackwell | |||
Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs singles chronology | ||||
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"Li'l Red Riding Hood" is a 1966 song performed by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. It was the group's second top-10 hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1966[1] Outside the US, it peaked at No. 2 on the Canadian RPM magazine charts. It was certified gold by the RIAA on August 11, 1966.[2]
Premise
The song is built around Charles Perrault's fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood", adapted by ending before the grandmother makes her entrance. The effect, whether intentional or incidental, is to strip away the fairy tale's metaphorical device and present the relationship between the two characters without literary pretense.
The singer remarks on "what big eyes" and "what full lips" Red has, and eventually on "what a big heart" he himself has. An added element is that he says (presumably aside, to the song's audience) that he is disguised in a "sheep suit" until he can demonstrate his good intentions, but he seems to be having a hard time suppressing his wolf call in the form of a howl, in favor of the baa-ing of a sheep, at the very end of the song when Sam repeats the word "baa" a few times during the song's fade. One of its signature lines is "you're ev'rything that a big bad wolf could want." The song begins with a howl, and a spoken recitation that goes: "Who's that I see walkin' in these woods?/Why it's Little Red Riding Hood."
Attribution
The song whose lyrics are described just above is widely attributed to Ronald Blackwell.[3] There seems to be no controversy (although various titles are occasionally used) that one with a similar title was earlier written and recorded by the Big Bopper, and released as "Little Red Riding Hood" (i.e., with little spelled out) late in 1958 as the B-side of his second hit.[4] The searchable sites with its complete lyrics as text seem to constitute no more than a handful,[5][6][7][8] but a recording, purported to be of his voice[9] and thus presumably as being authoritative as to lyrics, exists online.
Though related in concept to the later Blackwell song, these differ in:
- Conflating into one the wolves of Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs (and implying he is on good terms with the pigs)
- Having the singer call himself both the Big Bopper and the Big Bad Wolf
- Encountering Red from outside her locked door, where he knocks seeking entrance
- Being apparently more frank, in saying "you're the swingin'est and that's no lie", and insisting on being let in promptly lest the rest of the household return first
- Foregoing mentioning any fairy-tale-wolfish characteristics or behavior except a Three-Pigs-wolfish threat to blow the house down (unless one counts cackling laughter).
Notable cover versions
To promote her movie Red Riding Hood, star Amanda Seyfried performed a cover of the song.[10]
Song in popular culture
It is a prominent plot element in the 1993 film Striking Distance with Bruce Willis,[11] and it is featured in the films Digging for Fire,[12] Wild Country (2005),[13] and Wolves at the Door (2016). A cover by Laura Gibson was in a 2012 Volvo commercial for its S60T5. The song appeared in the TV show Grimm, where it was played at the beginning of the season 3 episode "Red Menace" that aired in 2014. It also appears just after the opening titles of the episode of the British soap opera Coronation Street that aired on the ITV network on October 18, 2021.
References
- ^ "Top Music Charts – Hot 100". Billboard. Archived from the original on June 22, 2014. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
- ^ "RIAA Gold & Platinum Search". RIAA. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
- ^ "Billboard". 1 October 1966. p. 52. Retrieved 10 October 2016.
- ^ "Read expert reviews on Electronics, Cars, Books, Movies, Music and More". Epinions.com. Archived from the original on 2012-08-25. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
- ^ "Mediaaccess Bt. - English Language Studies - Students' Corner - Young Students' Corner". Mediaaccess.hu. 2015-11-21. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
- ^ "www.lyricsvault.net". Lyricsvault.info. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
- ^ "Internet Pop Song Database Billboard Top 40 Hot 100 Charts Hits Lyrics". Song-database.com. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
- ^ "Lyrics: Lil' Red Riding Hood by The Big Bopper". Top40db.net. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
- ^ The Big Bopper – "Little Red Riding Hood" on YouTube
- ^ "Breaking Celeb News, Entertainment News, and Celebrity Gossip | E! News". Eonline.com. 14 March 2011. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
- ^ "Soundtracks for Striking Distance". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
- ^ "Soundtracks for Digging for Fire". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
- ^ "Soundtracks for Wild Country". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
- v
- t
- e
- Red Riding Hood (1901)
- Little Red Riding Hood (1920)
- Little Red Riding Hood (1953)
- Little Red Riding Hood (1954)
- Rotkäppchen (1962)
- Tom Thumb and Little Red Riding Hood (1962)
- About the Little Red Riding Hood (1977)
- Red Riding Hood (1989)
- Little Red Riding Hood (1997)
- Red Riding Hood (2003)
- Red Riding Hood (2006)
- Red Riding Hood (2011)
- Little Red Riding Hood (1922 cartoon)
- Dizzy Red Riding Hood (1931 cartoon)
- Old King Cole (1933 cartoon)
- The Big Bad Wolf (1934 cartoon)
- Little Red Walking Hood (1937 cartoon)
- The Bear's Tale (1940 cartoon)
- Red Hot Riding Hood (1943 cartoon)
- Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears (1944 cartoon)
- Little Red Riding Rabbit (1944 cartoon)
- Who's Cookin' Who? (1946 cartoon)
- Little Rural Riding Hood (1949 cartoon)
- Little Red Rodent Hood (1952 cartoon)
- Red Riding Hoodwinked (1955 cartoon)
- Red Riding Hoodlum (1957 cartoon)
- Now Hare This (1958 cartoon)
- Little Woody Riding Hood (1962 cartoon)
- Rough Riding Hood (1966 cartoon)
- For the Love of Pizza (1972 cartoon)
- The Magic Riddle (1991 film)
- Redux Riding Hood (1997 film)
- Hoodwinked! (2005 film)
- Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil (2011 film)
- Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ (2008)
- The Path (2009)
- Overlord: Dark Legend (2009)
- Dragon Fin Soup (2015)
- Little Red Riding Hood (1911 opera)
- Grimm (2014 musical)
- The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck (1908)
- Anguish Languish (1956)
- Chapeuzinho Amarelo (1970)
- Flossie & the Fox (1986)
- Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China (1989)
- Wolf (1990)
- Little Red Cap (1999)
- Scarlet (2013)
- "Li'l Red Riding Hood" (1966)
- The Company of Wolves (1984)
- The Red Spectacles (1987)
- Freeway (1996)
- Black XXX-Mas (1999)
- Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999)
- Tokyo Red Hood (2003)
- A Wicked Tale (2005)
- "Red-Handed" (2012)
- "Child of the Moon" (2012)
- Little Dead Rotting Hood (2016)
- Big Bad Wolf (character)
- Red (character)
- Akazukin Chacha (1994 anime series)
- Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears
- Now Hare This
- Deadtime Stories
- Baby Bear and the Big, Bad Wolf
- Simsala Grimm (Animated TV series)
- Into the Woods (1986 Broadway Production)
- Once Upon a Time (TV series)
- Xuxa em O Mistério de Feiurinha (2009 film)
- Into the Woods (2014 film)
- RWBY