Beauty Through Pain

Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom) [by David Lehman]

[ad_1]

Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom)

When Charles said that Paul McCartney was “the Perry Como of the 90s,” he meant to disparage McCartney, but I took it as a knock on Perry Como.

John Ashbery said you didn’t really like pop culture unless you liked “Mairsy Doates.” I make the same claim for “Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom),” Perry Como’s big 1956 hit: America’s answer to Emmanuel Chabrier‘s 1883 composition, España.

“ Hot diggity dog” was, by the way, a phrase Al Jolson came up with to express his pleasure in an audience’s approval: “Hot diggity dog! Hot kitty! Hot pussycat! Didn’t I tell you you’d love it?”