Song Of The Day 2/17/2013: Gilda Radner - "Gimme Mick"

During the golden years of Saturday Night Live, Gilda Radner created Candy Slice, the first full-on parody of punk rock that I remember seeing. The caricature looked and felt like it was supposed to be Patti Smith, but Patti's true character was a lot more literate (and a lot less inebriated) than Candy, who simply looked like the female equivalent of Animal from The Anti-Nowhere League. It was still a funny bit, though. This segment from her performance movie Gilda Live! includes her future husband G.E. Smith on guitar, and Paul Shaffer on drums(!).

This brings back a weird childhood memory: Back when I was a Jehovah's Witness kid, we were admonished to avoid all sorts of popular music on the grounds that it was satanic, or led to moral decay, or something like that. Of course punk rock was on the list of musical styles to flee from. My mom saw Candy Slice on SNL before I did -- I do not know how that happened -- and realized it was a parody, but still told me it was a great example of how this music was supposed to be corrupt and disgusting.

This was, of course, before Celine Dion translated The Satanic Mass into English and released it under the title Let's Talk About Love.