The Stripper by David Rose & His Orchestra

Album: Very Best of David Rose (1962)

Charted: 1

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Songfacts®:

This is an instrumental song that is usually associated with a strip tease.
This was used for the TV program Burlesque. It accompanied a scene featuring a woman stripping off screen while two men argued on screen. This gave it a reputation as a song to take your clothes off to.
Rose wrote this in the last 10 minutes of a recording session in 1958. He didn't have a name for it, and referred to it as "a funny piece of music with no title." Later that year, Rose was asked to re-record the song "Ebb Tide" to help promote the movie "Sweet Bird of Youth" (with Paul Newman and Geraldine Page), which he quickly did, but the movie studio needed a B-side for the single, so this song, which was an unnamed, unreleased cut, was pulled from the vaults, given a name ("The Stripper") and placed on the B-side of the "Ebb Tide" single.
Los Angeles DJ Robert Q. Lewis popularized this by playing it on the air for 45 minutes straight and playing it whenever a listener requested ANY song.
When Rose performed in the Royal Albert Hall years later, he had no intention of including this in his repertoire, but he played it anyway after someone in the audience yelled out a request for it. Rose apologized to Albert Hall management afterwards.
Rose did the score to over 1000 television programs, most notably the series The Red Skelton Show, Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, and Highway to Heaven. He died in 1990 at the age of 80. >>
Suggestion credit:
Brad Wind - Miami, FL, for above 5

Comments: 3

Mike from Franklin County, PaThe song was used back in the late 60s to early 70s as the background music for the commercial "Noxema" shaving cream . .. In the commercial a man would smeared the shaving cream on his face first while the music played , then shaved his face with the razor with the music. After he shaved , we would hear a woman in the background sing these words to the song : "The more that you shave ..The more you need 'NOXEMA'..etc." (something about the 3 or four different variety brands , and how close they strip you of your hair ).
Madison from Norway, MeWhen I was a dj some years ago, one of the games I did was to have a hula hoop contest and this was the song I played while they were doing it. It's especially funny when there are older people trying to hula hoop and they lose from laughing so hard.
Ken from Louisville, KyThis was the music used in several television commercials for Noxema shaving cream, where a sexy young woman would seductivly coo "Take it off...take it ALL off!"

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