In re Monster Mash

In 2017’s internet-centric media world, the illusion of interactivity trumps truth, and the mind-altering pursuit of that illusory activity has little time for factual accuracy. Thus, it was with familiar disappointment that I encountered the below stitch of web content in the days preceding the instant holiday:

Guys. I'm here to red-pill you all.

You've never heard the actual Monster Mash. You've just heard a record *about* the Monster Mash.

Yeah.

— Lawrence Miles (@Lawrence_Miles) October 8, 2017

I do not know Lawrence Miles. There is a good chance I do not know any of the roughly sixty thousand internet people who interacted with Miles’ tweet. I do know “Monster Mash,” though.

“Monster Mash” is at least two things: 1) a song recorded and released by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers in 1962 and 2) a dance performed by the monsters referenced in the song.

Miles’ statement obviously is incorrect on its face. After all, Pickett’s song, which topped charts shortly after its release and remains a seasonal favorite more than sixty years later, has reached many ears.

Of course, that is not the sense at which Miles directed his tweet. The song may be called “Monster Mash,” but it obviously is about something called “the monster mash” as well, and that subject is Miles’ target. Miles may not be a careful listener, however, because the song clearly identifies and describes the monster mash as a dance, rather than a song:

I was working in the lab, late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
For my monster from his slab, began to rise
And suddenly to my surprise

He did the mash, he did the monster mash
The monster mash, it was a graveyard smash
He did the mash, it caught on in a flash
He did the mash, he did the monster mash

From my laboratory in the castle east
To the master bedroom where the vampires feast
The ghouls all came from their humble abodes
To get a jolt from my electrodes

They did the mash, they did the monster mash
The monster mash, it was a graveyard smash
They did the mash, it caught on in a flash
They did the mash, they did the monster mash

There is no ambiguity here. Whether it was the monster mash or the mashed potato, the narrator is describing a particular dance the monsters were doing, not a song they were playing. Miles reasonably might have contended that no one had ever seen the monster mash dance performed, but his statement, insofar as it contemplates the monster mash as a song, finds no support in the text itself.

A potential problem for the analysis presented in this post appears in the chorus following the third verse, however, which uses slightly different phrasing:

The Zombies were having fun, the party had just begun
The guests included Wolfman, Dracula, and his son

The scene was rockin’, all were digging the sounds
Igor on chains, backed by his baying hounds
The coffin-bangers were about to arrive
With their vocal group, ‘The Crypt-Kicker Five’

They played the mash, they played the monster mash
The monster mash, it was a graveyard smash
They played the mash, it caught on in a flash
They played the mash, they played the monster mash

A band appears and, for the first time, this chorus introduces the notion that the monster mash is something that could be “played” as well as done, lending apparent support to the implied premise of Miles’ assertion (i.e., that the monster mash is a song). At this juncture, the best we can do is meet Miles part way. The monster mash plainly is a dance, but it might also be a song. If so, however, the question remains: have we heard the monster mash song?

With an assist from Dracula, the monsters answer this question in the affirmative. Immediately after the foregoing chorus, the narrator tells us:

Out from the coffin, Drac’s voice did ring
Seems he was troubled by just one thing
He opened the lid and shook his fist and said
“Whatever happened to my Transylvania Twist?”

It’s now the mash, it’s now the monster mash
The monster mash, it was graveyard smash
It’s now the mash, it caught on in a flash
It’s now the mash, it’s now the monster mash

Importantly, Dracula has been in his closed coffin this entire time (“Out from the coffin . . . He opened the lid . . .”), so he had not seen the monster mash dance but he had heard the monster mash song. Thus, when he asked about the “Transylvania Twist,” now rebranded as “The Monster Mash,” he was referring to a song and not a dance. And, contrary to Miles’ claim, we have heard “Transylvania Twist,” a rollicking barrel-house instrumental that would sound right at home in Eastern Kentucky:

No matter which way you slice it, Miles was wrong: the monster mash is a dance, and, to the extent it also is a song, it is a song we have heard.

(While the preparation of this post brought me no pleasure, I was glad to learn in the course of my research that the late Leon Russell was a Crypt-Kicker whose keyboard mashing appeared one one of the tracks on The Original Monster Mash, “Monster Mash Party,” which was the b-side to “Monster Mash.”)

Wishing everyone an honest Halloween.

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