She Wears Red Feathers - Cheerful song of the week

Well for a truly bizarre yet chirpy song, let me take you back to the 1950s.

Written by Bob Merrill, who wrote countless hits including How Much Is That Doggie in The Window, Mambo Italiano and "If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a cake". He also wrote the stage show Funny Girl and wrote the subsequent screenplay. He wrote a number of Broadway plays and musicals.

So She Wears Red Feathers, a song about a London banker who marries a tropical island inhabitant who lives on just coconuts and fish from the sea (presumably there weren't supermarkets on the island).

The wedding ceremony looks to have been quite exotic, her parents seemed to have approved of the relationship and consented to the marriage, yet it was an elephant who brought the bride in and not her father. There didn't appear to be an organist, but there was a rather clever rendition of "Here Comes The Bride" performed by 6 baboons on bassoons.

Evidently the island life didn't suit the bridegroom and they returned to London, where he seems to have gone back to working at the bank. The island lady likes to sip tea and stroll arm in arm with her husband along Piccadilly, her diet appears to have not changed even living in London. I'd assume her fish supply comes from the Thames whilst her coconuts are probably imported.

The American singer Guy Mitchell had a number one hit with the song in 1953.