Death Cab for Cutie (song)

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Death Cab for Cutie is a song composed by Vivian Stanshall and Neil Innes and performed by Stanshall and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. It was included on their 1967 album Gorilla.

Unlike most comedy/satirical performers, who write songs that parody other well-known songs, the Bonzo band wrote original material that parodied musical styles.

Vivian intended "Death Cab For Cutie" as a send-up of Elvis Presley, and he performed it as such. Like many early rock songs, most notably Teen Angel, it tells a story of youthful angst. It's the story of "Cutie" who goes out on the town against her lover's wishes. "Last night Cutie caught a cab, uhuh-huh..." She is killed when the taxicab she's in runs a red light and crashes. Vivian, as lead singer, details Cutie's doomed journey to the sound of a honky-tonk piano, while the Bonzo chorus warns: "Baby, don't do it..." Vivian repeats the refrain in true Presley hip-wriggling style: "Someone's going to make you pay your fare."

The song is better known than most other Bonzo Dog efforts, since it was featured in the Beatles' experimental film Magical Mystery Tour. Performed on stage by Bonzos with Vivian in gold lamé at the Raymond Revue Bar in London, it was the lyrical accompaniment for a striptease act: Jan Carson ogled by John Lennon and George Harrison.

The band can also be seen playing the song in a 1967 episode of "Do Not Adjust Your Set," which is now available on DVD.

The indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie took its name from the song.

The phrase "Death Cab for Cutie" appears to have been coined by Richard Hoggart in his "The Uses of Literacy," a 1957 book discussing British popular culture -- a pioneering work in the cultural studies field. The term appears in chapter 8, "The Newer Mass Art: Sex in Shiny Packets," under part C: "Sex and Violence Novels." Hoggart provides a list of "imitations" of the "terse, periodic titles" of these novels, including: "Sweetie, Take it Hot," "The Lady Takes a Dive," "Aim Low, Angel," "Sweetheart, Curves Can Kill," and "Death-Cab for Cutie" (note use of the hyphen in "Death-Cab"). Presumably, Hoggart's book provided the inspiration for Stanshall's song, which later served as the inspiration for the name of the American band of the same name.