THE PURPLE PEOPLE EATER

I often find myself lying wide awake in the middle of the night…thinking…ever since I switched to sleeping with my arms outside the covers. Recently, while writing, I paused, maybe for nostalgia’s sake, to listen to a song from the 50s, ‘The Purple People Eater,’ by Sheb Wooley. Later on, my mind, which is a terrible waste, was replaying the lyrics in my head. At first, I thought I had contracted an ‘earworm,’ but it wasn’t the tune so much as it was the words that captured my attention.

The Purple People Eater

Song by Sheb Wooley

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

It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater

(One-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater)

A one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater

Sure looks strange to me (one eye?)

Well he came down to earth and he laid in the tree

I said Mr. Purple People Eater, don't eat me

I heard him say in a voice so gruff

"I wouldn't eat you 'cause you're so tough"

It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater

One-eyed, one-horned flyin' purple people eater

One-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater

Sure looks strange to me (one horn?)

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"

Well bless my soul, rock and roll, flyin' purple people eater

Pigeon-toed, undergrowed, flyin' purple people eater

(We wear short shorts)

Friendly little people eater

What a sight to see

And then he swung from the tree and he laid on the ground

And he started to rock, really rockin' around

It was a crazy ditty with a swingin' tune

"Sing a bop-bop aboopa-lopa, loom bam-boom"

Well bless my soul, rock and roll, flyin' purple people eater

Pigeon-toed, undergrowed, flyin' purple people eater

"I like short shorts"

Flyin' purple people eater

Quite a sight to see (purple people?)

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

(Tequila)

Question: Was it ‘A one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater' or ‘A one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater'? This may not seem like a very important detail to you, but at two in the morning, in my mind, that ranked right up there with ‘Global Warming’ and' World Peace.'

Let us beat this question to death…shall we? If we suppose that the alien who came out of the sky and laid in a tree WAS indeed a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater, this was not a major concern because, to the best of my knowledge, I am not aware of any purple people. The nearest I can think of would be Smurfs, which are more blue than purple, and they are not people. I would imagine though, if you ate one, they would probably taste like Blueberries. This would also beg the question why would a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people, eater come to our planet where there are no purple people to eat. Was it misinformed by a travel agent on its planet? It seems like a foolish thing to travel a billion trillion miles to come here, merely hoping there would be purple people to eat.

 

 This leads to the next question: If you are a purple people eater or even a purple people eater, where did you get the people in the first place? I’m sorry, but I’ve got to beat this subject like a jockey sitting on a dead horse until I get it across the finish line. If you have purple people eaters or a purple people eater, and your planet is a billion trillion miles away, you’d have to suppose that a round trip could take a long time. Could it be that as a teenage alien, he grew up listening to his grandparents talk about the old days when they dined on nothing but purple people? It would be understandable as soon as the youth got their intergalactic driver’s license and tricked out the old rocket jalopy he’d bought from the junkyard with the money he earned on his paper route, he’d pack a suitcase and head for the earth.

 

Can you imagine the disappointment he felt when he got here and found there were no purple people? His forefathers must have either been ‘yanking’ his ‘one-horn’ or indiscriminately captured and ate all the purple people without any regard for the ‘natural preservation’ of the species. An alligator had more protection than a purple person. Maybe its ancestors had the forethought to bag a few dozen purple people and bring them back to their planet, where they are bred like cattle. Thus, you could assume the impetuous teenage space traveler packed a few purple people for the trip to hold him over until he found more. Unfortunately, upon landing, he discovered there were no more Indigenous purple people, and you know, teenagers; he had eaten all the purple people he had before he entered the Milky Way, so he was not able to repopulate the species.

 

If you choose, however, to believe that the alien in question is a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people…eater, that becomes an entirely different matter. This would mean that everyone on Earth would potentially be in danger. I can’t prove it, but I suspect that being a one-eyed, one-horned, purple creature, it is entirely possible it was a hermaphrodite (ability to self-reproduce or go to the prom by themselves).

 

Of course there is no reason to panic, yet. How many people can one alien eat in a week? If we could persuade this one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple ‘people, eater, to eat only the people we select, this could actually be a good thing. I would start composing a list of all the people I wanted to appear on the menu. It did state in the song that the alien does not like his people to be too tough. That would most likely exclude bodybuilders, skinny, bony folks, and runway models. However, the obese would be fair game, giving a new definition to ‘fat acceptance,’ and certainly, they couldn’t hope to outrun a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater unless, of course, the alien was on a low-fat diet.

 

According to the song, eating purple people or people in general was NOT the reason the alien came to land; rather, it was to join a rock and roll band. I can understand that. If you had one eye, one horn, wings, and purple skin, you’d fit right in with a rock ’n roll band.

 

Then he swung from the tree and lay on the ground, rocking and rolling, moving spasmodically, which presumably means that with the ability to fly, his race had lost the use of its legs over time. These are only assumptions on my part.

 

It reminds me of a biologist who had graduated last in his class. He took a huge bullfrog and, upon shouting the command to ‘Jump’, then measured the height. Cutting off the right front leg, shouted ‘Jump’ again, recording in his journal that the amphibian did not jump as high this time. The biologist believed he was on to something. After removing the other forearm, shouting and measuring showed that the poor critter did not jump as high as it had just done. Excitedly, one of the hind legs was removed, and when the command to ‘Jump’ was given, it did not jump nearly as much as before. The biologists decided to cut off the last leg to see how high the frog could get. He shouted, ‘Jump’ but nothing happened. He shouted the command time and time again, but the frog did not move. The biologist wrote his conclusion in his journal. ‘Upon removing all four legs of the frog…it turned deaf.’

 

The last known whereabouts of this ‘illegal alien’ was when it was seen on TV, having moved to Hollywood, where it blended in with the local residents perfectly. So, in conclusion, remember:

A bop-bop aboopa-lopa, loom bam-boom

Tequila.