Remember that rock song at the end of WKRP in Cincinnati? The one that ends with a kitten meowing? Well, today I learned that its lyrics are complete gibberish.
Go ahead, listen to it, I’ll wait.
All gibberish!
Here’s its story, according to the last.fm wiki:
The closing theme, “WKRP In Cincinnati End Credits”, was a hard rock number composed and performed by Jim Ellis, an Atlanta musician who recorded some of the incidental music for the show. According to people who attended the recording sessions, Ellis didn’t yet have lyrics for the closing theme, so he sang nonsense words to give an idea of how it would sound. Wilson decided to use the words anyway, since he felt that it would be funny to use lyrics that were deliberately gibberish, as a satire on the incomprehensibility of many rock songs. Also, because CBS always had an announcer talking over the closing credits, Wilson knew that no one would actually hear the closing theme lyrics anyway.
A big thanks to astute reader Mangochin for pointing this bit of trivia out in the comments section for our other recent WKRP in Cincinnati post.