Pop quiz: Is this song about a purple monster who eats people? Or someone who eats purple people? THAT is the question, with all due respect to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
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For the answer to that question and more, let’s dive in below. This is the story behind the novelty rock song (and its meaning) of the 1958 hit, “The Purple People Eater.”
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Novelty Rock
Like other songs, including “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” and songs by the Chipmunks, “The Purple People Eater” was part of a craze in the 1950s for novelty rock songs. These were songs that used the sounds and tropes of rock and roll but were less aggressive and more humorous.
Written by Sheb Wooley, who was also an actor in the hit sports movie Hoosiers, playing an assistant coach, the song was released in 1958 and it quickly hit No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard pop charts as, well as those in Canada and Australia. The song also hit No. 12 in the U.K.
That same year, Alvin and the Chipmunks released their first song, and the track “Short Shorts,” as in who wears them, hit the charts, bringing in even more novelty songs onto the hallowed Billboard list.
The Story
At its core, “The Purple People Eater” is like a comic book set to music. It’s about an alien with one eye and one horn coming down to Earth.
Well I saw the thing comin’ out of the sky
It had the one long horn, and one big eye
I commenced to shakin’ and I said “Ooh-eee”
It looks like a purple people eater to me
The singer is scared that the monster is going to eat him. But in the end, he doesn’t, because the singer is “too tough.” But what DOES the monster want? The key stanza comes in the middle of the song and also seemingly answers our original question up top.
I said Mr. Purple People Eater, what’s your line?
And he said, “Eatin’ purple people and it sure is fine”
But that’s not the reason that I came to land
“I wanna get a job in a rock and roll band”
So, more than eating people, the monster wants to play in a rock and roll band. And to clarify the query above, the monster eats people who are purple (wherever they live, perhaps in another far-out galaxy or at Area 51). In the end, the monster gets a job, thanks to the one horn he has.
Well he went on his way, and then what do ya know
I saw him last night on a TV show
He was blowing it out, a-really knockin’ em dead
Playin’ rock and roll music through the horn in his head
The Song’s Origin
In 1958, Time magazine reported that the song originated as a joke told by a childhood friend of Wooley’s. After hearing the joke with the right frame of mind, Wooley wrote the song in an hour. But whether the monster is purple or not remains ambiguous. So much so that radio disc jockeys, at the time, had fans send in hand-drawn images of the monster to see what they thought.
Originally, Wooley’s song was rejected by MGM Records. But when a demo of the song got into the hands of the company’s young employees, who would listen to it in droves during lunch, MGM changed their mind.
Sound Effects
Along with chipmunk-like vocal effects from the monster, the song includes a toy-sounding saxophone that was originally played at a slower speed and then sped up with the frequency increased.
Legacy
The same year the song came out, iconic entertainer Judy Garland recorded it for her album, Garland at the Grove. High praise. Since then, Wooley has recrded the song serveral times, including “The Purple People Eater #2” in 1967 for MGM, which is credited to his alter ego Ben Colder, and again in 1979 as “Purple People Eater” for King Records.
The same year the song came out, iconic entertainer Judy Garland recorded it for her album Garland at the Grove. High praise. Since then, Wooley has recorded the song several times, including “The Purple People Eater #2” in 1967 for MGM, which is credited to his alter ego Ben Colder, and again in 1979 as “Purple People Eater” for King Records.
But perhaps most importantly these days, as NFL fans know, the Minnesota Vikings football team’s defense in the 1970s was called the Purple People Eaters, because the Vikings’ uniforms are purple.
The song’s lyrics were also cited in 2022 in the popular film, Nope, when a photographer is trying to take a photo of some invading aliens.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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