"Ya Got Trouble" is a song by Meredith Willson from the 1957 Broadway musical The Music Man, and its 1962 filmed version The Music Man. It is one of the most popular and recognizable songs in the musical, and Robert Preston's performance in the film is admired. Willson considered eliminating a long piece of dialogue from his draft of The Music Man about the serious trouble facing River City parents. Willson realized it sounded like a lyric and transformed it into "Ya Got Trouble".[1]
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A smooth-talking, yet corrupt traveling salesman takes up the false occupation of a instrument dealer and tries to convince the citizens of River City, Iowa to fund his idea for a boys' marching band instead of a pool hall. The stubborn citizens are reluctant to do this, and the song is his description of what could happen should the citizens choose the pool hall.
The song is sometimes listed as "(Ya Got) Trouble".[2] The original broadway cast album lists the song title as "Trouble", both on the record jacket and label. "You Got Trouble" is a common misspelling of the song title.
American humorist, satirist, and advertising innovator Stan Freberg covered the song for Capitol Records. Though Freberg often directly parodied songs (or "kidded" them, in his phrase) his recording of Ya Got Trouble was a straightforward recording of the song, arranged and conducted by his longtime collaborator Billy May. Freberg wrote that the subtle parody in the recording lay in the fact that it was recorded in an empty concert hall, as were many Broadway soundtrack albums, with the characteristic echo of such large empty space.