Last week we wrote an innocuous intro to a batch of book reviews, mentioning in passing that we were converting our house heating system from oil to gas. We were amused to see that the post was favorited on Twitter by the National Propane Gas Association.
Well, the NPGA’ll this one even better then. It is presented in honor of the completion of three weeks work in our house: the removal of two oil-based furnaces and an oil tank and the installation of two propane-fueled furnaces and a propane-fueled tankless water heater. We are wonderfully warm.
For the purposes of this list, ambiguous uses of the word “gas” were allowed, but specific references to gasoline were not. That would lead to a much longer list (of stock-car and trucking songs) for another time.
1. “Classical Gas,” Mason Williams. This guy is an American treasure. He was a comedy writer for the Smothers Brothers and other TV variety shows. He published a book of amusing poetry. He testified before congress by telling stories and playing his guitar. He collected songs about rivers. And he was an accomplished guitarist who had this amazing instrumental hit record in 1968.
2. “It’s a Gas,” Mad Magazine. Printed on cardboard as a giveaway in a 1963 Mad special issue, this song takes “gas” to its logical flatulent extreme.
3. Sage the Gemini, “Gas Pedal.”
4. Lil JJ, “This Song is Flammable, Call It Propane.”
5. A$AP Rocky, “Angels.” It begins “Ten gold chains, wood grain propane. Sell the whole thang from the cellphone rang.”
6. The Wrens, “Propane.” “38 hours since I got you home safe/ 42 gallons of your favorite propane.”
7. T.I., “Propane.” “I’m so on fire they call me Mr. Propane.”
8. They Might Be Giants, “Solid Liquid Gas Song.” So, “The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas” is not the only TMBG gas song. And this one’s an original, not a cover.
9. Erik Friedlander, “Block Ice and Propane.” Friedlander was in New Haven in June with his concert of this title, about travelling cross-country with his photographer father.
10. “Propane for Life,” on the Louisiana Propane website.
11. “Propane for the People,” Saucer. A protest song penned after an explosion at the Sunrise Propane plant in North York, Toronto.
12. Pendulum, “Propane Nightmares.”
13. Kid Rock, “American Badass.” “30-pack opf Stroh’s, 30-pack of hoes, no rogaine in the propane flows.”
14. “All About Propane,” Mikey Bolt’s parody of Meghan Trainor’s “All About the Bass.”
15. The King of the Hill theme song.
16. “Mr. Gasser,” by Mr. Gasser & the Weirdos. From Hot Rod Hootenanny, an amazing 1963 surf/garage album based on concepts by car-cartoonist Ed “Big Daddy” Roth.
17. The Wheel Men, “School is a Gas.” An answer song to the more credibly argued “School is a Drag” by the Super Stocks.
18. Flanders and Swann, “The Gas Men Cometh.” The British comedy duo, on how workmen just make more work for the next workmen.
19. There are multiple “Propane” songs which are direct parodies of the Eric Clapton hit “Cocaine.” The best known by Pinkard & Bowden, from the ealy ‘90s.
20. Gas-themed band names out there include The Gas Men, Bus Gas, Natural Gas, Propane Cowboy, Propane Penny, Propane James and yes, Propane Propane.
The trade journal Oil & Gas Monitor did their own list of songs about oil and gas, and proclaimed disappoinment in their findings. The list of “OGM’s Greatest Oil and Gas Songs that are NOT that Great” is here.