The Stripper

David Rose (standing on the right) in AFRS Radio Show, c. 1946

"The Stripper" is an instrumental composed by David Rose, recorded in 1958 and released four years later. It evinces a jazz influence with especially prominent trombone lines, and evokes the feel of music used to accompany striptease artists.

The song came to prominence by chance. David Rose had recorded "Ebb Tide" as an A-side of a record. His record company, MGM Records, wanted to get the record on the market quickly, but they discovered they had no B-side for it. Rose was away at the time the need for the B-side song surfaced. An MGM office boy was given the job of going through some of Rose's tapes of unreleased material to find something that would work; he liked the song and chose it as the flip side for the record.^[1] The song reached number one on Billboard's Top 100 chart in July, 1962.^[2]

The piece features in the films Slap Shot, Scarecrow, Used Cars, Stella (1990 film), The Full Monty and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit as well as TV series Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Persuaders, The Golden Girls, Maude, Coupling, Little Britain, Are You Being Served?, As Time Goes By, Keeping Up Appearances, Drawn Together, Black Books and Scrubs. It was also famously used in a parody by British comedy duo Morecambe and Wise, where they danced to the tune while making breakfast. A PG Tips tea commercial featured a parody of the Morcambe and Wise sketch with Johnny Vegas and Monkey making a cup of tea in a similar manner.

In the 1970s, English rock band The Sweet always used the original song as an intro to their performances.

American rock band Mötley Crüe occasionally used the original song as an intro during performances in the late 1980s, most notably at the one-time Moscow Music Peace Festival which was held in August 1989.

Rod Stewart has also used this song as an intro on several tours, like on the Tonight I Am Yours-Tour.

A famous Noxzema shave-cream advertising campaign developed by the William Esty Advertising Agency used the piece as background music for a television commercial that featured Swedish model Gunilla Knutson telling men to “Take it off! Take it all off!”. Cut to closeups of the faces of men shaving with safety razors, the razor strokes coinciding with the emphatic parts of the tune.

The late professional wrestler, Rick Rude, utilized this as his theme song.

Neo-Burlesque chanteuse Dita Von Teese cites this as one of the best striptease songs of all time.

References