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• songspeak

  Burn baby burn, it’s a disco towel

  posted by jamie | 10.21.09 | permalink | 1 comment

  

  This is so weird, like, bein' on this burnin' towel!

  The year was 1996, and it was our then-annual Lake George camping trip. I believe this trip took place not long after a group of us had gone to see Kingpin (the Farrelly Brothers movie starring Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, and Bill Murray). Disco Inferno by the Trammps was featured in the film, and must have remained in our friend Kevin’s head for quite some time afterward, because we would be singing it quite often. Then this songspeak moment occurred: A group of us were playing games at the campsite picnic table (probably Scattergories or some other such party game) while a citronella candle burned at the end of the table to keep the bugs away. Then, the unthinkable happened. One of us tossed a towel aside, and it landed in a most inopportune place. Smack dab on top of the candle. The towel, of course, caught fire, and we immediately threw it onto the ground and stomped it out. Kevin, meanwhile, started singing “Burn, baby, burn…” What we all expected him to sing next was, “It’s a towel inferno!”, but no. Instead, he sang, “It’s a disco towel!”. This made no sense, and due to the tensions being high and our near brush with death*, we all laughed more than we should have. It’s been over 13 years since that fateful day, but Matt and I still remember that songspeak quite fondly.

  *And by “death”, I mean “charred towel”.

  

  Tags: 70s music, 90s movies, bill murray, camping, campsite, citronella candle, disco, disco inferno, disco towel, farrelly brothers, kevin, kingpin, lake george, randy quaid, scattergories, the trammps, towel, towel inferno, woody harrelson

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