Lonely Swedish (The Bum Bum Song)

"Lonely Swedish (The Bum Bum Song)" is a novelty song by Canadian comedian Tom Green, created in 1999 for The Tom Green Show. When the show moved to MTV, Green released it as a single, encouraging visitors to download the song (an mp3) for free from his website, burn it onto CDs and distribute it to friends. The music video was filmed in Seattle, Washington, home of the Swedish Medical Center, from which the name of the song is derived.

This song's nonsensical, comedic lyrics deal with various objects upon which the narrator's buttocks are placed, such as a step, cheese, a railing, bubblegum, a dog, a cat, a telephone, a man, and a battleship.

A sample of the lyrics:

My bum is on the gum

My bum is on the gum

I can blow a bubble with my bum bum bum

The song came about when Green recorded a comedy sketch on a cruise ship as he wandered the decks bothering people. Following an altercation with a ship employee, he began rubbing his bottom against a rail, singing, "My bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rail." The incident inspired Green to compose the full song.

Legacy

Eminem

Rapper Eminem referenced Green's antics on the Bum Bum Song in his song "The Real Slim Shady", making the point that MTV was hypocritical in being selective about what material it would choose to play or censor, and why somehow Eminem's videos were deemed more offensive than certain Tom Green skits.

Sometimes I wanna get on TV and just let loose

But can't, but it's cool for Tom Green to hump a dead moose

"My bum is on your lips

My bum is on your lips"

And if I'm lucky you might just give it a little kiss

Green has frequently said that hearing himself referenced in an Eminem song was one of the more surreal and amusing aspects of his own, very sudden fame. The section of the "The Real Slim Shady" that mentions Green was played over the end credits of Green's film Freddy Got Fingered.

Other uses

Green's MTV special about his testicular cancer treatment began with a clip from the song, specifically the lyrics "My bum is on the cheese/My bum is on the cheese/If I get lucky, I'll get a disease!" Green then addressed the audience, saying, "Well... I got lucky."

The song's promotional video was a great success on Total Request Live. It was retired the day it reached number one on the countdown (27 August 1999), and after just five total days on the show. Green stated that the reason for retiring the video was that "it's not fair to 98 Degrees." Later, in his autobiography Hollywood Causes Cancer, he revealed that MTV had pressured him to do so in order to maintain the image that Total Request Live was, in fact, a live show. The next week's episodes had already been taped on-location, and the producers of the show were completely unaware of the song at the time.

MP3.com in conjunction with tomgreen.com ran a remix competition where several remixes of the song were profiled on Tom Green's website, promising the winner (who was to be chosen by total number of downloads and song plays) a flight to New York to see a taping of The Tom Green Show. However, the contest was cancelled when MP3.com changed owners and Green's popularity waned.