The Ballad of Scatman John
In a recent blog post I wrote about the concept of “Magical songs”, which, if I might once again quote myself, are “songs that everybody knows in their hearts and souls as well as their minds. They’re anthems. They get older but they never go away. Instead they grow bigger and more ubiquitous with time. That’s because anthems and huge hits become magical songs through the awesome power of nostalgia. Our connection to these songs is intense and spiritual but also fundamentally rooted in nostalgia and the role they have played in our lives, individually and collectively.”
All time great songs like “Hey Ya” and “Regulate” qualify as Magical Songs but so are any number of novelty hits. That includes Scatman John’s breakout smash “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop).”
The international smash left such a deep impression on me that every couple of months I become obsessed with it all over again.
Needless to say, my family does not find this charming. When I sing my five-year-old autistic son Harris says, “Stop the music!” My eight year old son Declan doesn’t care for my scat-singing either.
But I am a Gen-Xer so the song “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” is important to me in a way that’s hard to explain even if my stupid brain still insists that the song is titled “I’m the Scatman” instead of its actual name.
Incidentally, autocorrect insisted that I wanted to write “I’m the Scotsman”, which would be a much different song.
truer noises were never sung
Despite my curious obsession with Scatman John and “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” I’d never actually really listened to the lyrics and also knew nothing about Scatman John.
No one knows the lyrics to “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” beyond “I’m the Scatman! (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop).”
So I went back and watched the video for “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” was fascinated and surprised by how deeply personal and idealistic his lyrics are.
It’s no exaggeration to say that “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” is Scatman John’s version of Insane Clown Posse’s classic message song “Miracles.”
Before he was Scatman John the genius who gave the world ““Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” was a sad little boy named John Paul Larkin whose childhood was hell because of his stutter.
I had a speech impediment myself when I was a child so I could relate to his anguish. John’s life was hell until he turned twelve and discovered that he possessed a gift for both jazz piano and scat singing.
He fell in love with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong and worked hard to refine his craft. He released a self-titled jazz album in 1986 before moving to Berlin in 1990 so that he could live where jazz music was loved and appreciated.
It’s the Scatman in soda pop can form!
Larkin’s agent thought he might achieve mainstream breakthrough success if he added rapping and European dance music to his sound. He was reluctant at first out of a fear that audiences would realize that he stuttered but his wife encouraged him to write about his stuttering in his music.
He did just that in “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” though nobody seems to have noticed. “Everybody stutters one way or the other/So check out my message to you” are the first actual words of the song.
Later he raps, very whitely, “Everybody's sayin' that the Scatman stutters/But doesn't ever stutter when he sings/But what you don't know, I'm gonna tell you right now/That the stutter and the scat is the same thing.”
That’s incredibly corny but also strangely powerful. In the song he would be remembered for Larkin transformed an ostensible liability into a strength. The little boy who was mocked relentlessly for his stutter became a man known the world over for the amazing sounds that came out of his mouth.
There’s an earnestness to “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” that reminds me of “Miracles.” Larkin didn’t care if he came off as corny or lame. He wanted to make a statement through music all the same.
Larkin’s follow up to “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” , “Scatman’s World”, is even more earnest and preachy. It’s another message song with lyrics like, “Scatman, fat man, black and white and brown man/Tell me 'bout the color of your soul/If part of your solution isn't ending the pollution/Then I don't want to hear your stories told.”
Larkin was the unlikeliest of pop stars because he was a stuttering jazz pianist with a gift for scat singing but also because he was, by the standards of pop music, an old man when he broke through.
He was only an old man by the standards of pop and Hip Hop, however. As a man in his early fifties Larkin was a spring chicken where jazz and blues were concerned.
Larkin’s time on top was short lived, however. He scored international hits in the mid 1990s and died of lung cancer by the end of the decade, shortly before the new millennium.
When it came to pop music Larkin started late and died young. It’s ironic and unfortunate that he had so much that he wanted to say to the world about acceptance and stuttering and overcoming obstacles to live out your dreams yet will forever be associated with nonsense sounds and “I’m the Scatman.”
Scatman is gone but not forgotten. Last year a graphic novel was put out about his life, including his struggles with drugs and alcohol. A biopic about him is apparently in the works and in 2019 he got the greatest honor any musician could hope for when Lou Bega recorded a posthumous duet with him entitled “Scatman & Hatman.”
I sincerely hope this film gets made because I am sincerely touched by Scatman John, his music, his message and his dramatic, too short life. He’s so much more than just a one hit wonder or novelty artist. I’m excited that nearly three decades after the release of his big hit Scatman John’s story and his music continues to inspire people.
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