Whisperin’ Bill Anderson Reflects on Award-Winning Novelty Song That Took “Three Years and 20 Minutes” to Write

While it might be easy to assume that novelty songs are easier to write than sincere ones, “Whisperin’” Bill Anderson—and countless musical comedians and comedic musicians—would disagree. In his biography Whisperin’ Bill Anderson: An Unprecedented Life in Country Music, the soft-spoken country icon talked about Hank Williams’ famous quip about how “if a song couldn’t be written in twenty minutes, it wasn’t worth writing.” “I agree up to a point,” Anderson said.

“Sometimes, when an idea strikes, it hits so hard the song almost seems to write itself,” he continued.”One minute you’re staring at a blank piece of paper, the next minute, the words to a song are staring back at you. Nearly every successful writer I’ve ever talked to has at one time or another experienced the overwhelming phenomenon of suddenly having a song appear and not being able to recall writing it. Yet nobody has ever been able to explain how it happens.”

Anderson was no stranger to this experience, but he wasn’t immune to the alternative, either. When inspiration doesn’t come as easily, songs can become true labors of love. It may take weeks, months, or even years for the right words to present themselves in the right order. For Anderson, it took about “three years and twenty minutes” to write one of his sillier songs.

Whisperin’ Bill Anderson on the Song That Took Years to Write

Expanding on a tongue-in-cheek joke for an entire song is easier said than done. Lean too much into the joke, and the song can come across as vapid or thoughtless. Don’t lean into it enough, and the comedic bits seem out of place and immature. Indeed, there’s a fine line between ridiculousness and sincerity when it comes to good novelty songs, which is a lesson Whisperin’ Bill Anderson learned the hard way while trying to write the award-winning comedic song made famous by Roy Drusky, “Peel Me a ‘Nanner”.

In his biography, Anderson explained he came up with the chorus lyrics first. “Peel me a ‘nanner / toss me a peanut / and I’ll come swinging from a coconut tree. Peel me a ‘nanner / toss me a peanut / ‘cause you sure made a monkey out of me.” Anderson wrote, “As you might expect, I’ve been teased and kidded about that song for years. But if you knew all the trouble I had writing three verses to go with that crazy little chorus, you wouldn’t laugh at all.”

“It nearly drove me nuts,” Anderson continued. “The chorus and the idea are both so ludicrous that the temptation was to try and write nonsensical verses. But I’m no comedian, and how much “silly” can one song stand anyhow? So, I tried writing the verses in a serious vein. But how serious can you be when you’re writing about monkeys swinging from trees? One day, I was driving along in my car when zap! out of the blue I hit on the way to connect the chorus and the verses. The result was part serious, part foolishness. But it worked.”

“Peel Me a ‘Nanner” became a hit for recording artist Roy Drusky, firmly disproving Hank Williams’ advice about only writing songs in 20 minutes or less.

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