Help me regain my sanity about a song while growing up in Detroit in the late 60's.

[highjinx2]

While growing up in Detroit, in the late 60's, I heard a song on the radio.
I hadn't much thought about it, but lately, part of the music to it and a few words from it's lyrics have been driving me crazy and I can't get them out of my head.
I have tried Googling it, tried those lyric search engines and I have come up flat with no clues whatsoever.
Well since I do recall hearing very often while in the late 60's in Detroit, maybe by some chance this bit of the lyrics may be recognized by someone on this forum.
The music is upbeat tempo and the male singer is accompanied by an upright bar type piano and it's sound is very prevalent in the song and carries the whole tune throughout.
Now the bit of lyrics that are running through my head, though may very from what is actually sang since it's been 40 plus years since first hearing it, is as follows:
"if it wasn't for an extraordinary set of circumstance".
Now I do believe that this was part of the chorus line, and I know it to be a protest song, [novelty type], that it comically outed curtain events from that time period.
I hope someone can tell me what the title to this song is, and stop the madness from ringing in my head....really not madness, but you know what I mean.
Thanks for any assistance given.

[EASTSIDE CAT 67-83]

Highjinxdose
There is just not enough meat on the bone here to produce a jingle jangle, might I recommend some high grade herbal remedy to possibly connect the rest of the notes.

[wilderness]

FWIW, in my own recollection of most songs, and locating lyrics decades later? I've found that my own recollections of lyrics are greatly flawed and mostly incorrect. There must be and SE that allows searching song lyrics for specific words, however I could not locate one that functioned accordingly.

[Pam]

Is this it? Probably not, but in case you don't regain your sanity..

http://youtu.be/hnzHtm1jhL4

[Sandhouse]

There's not a word in common, but the meter of your half-remembered line makes me think of "A Small Circle of Friends" [[by Phil Ochs? My memory's going, too.) One verse goes,

Smokin' marijuana is more fun than drinking beer.
But a friend of ours got captured and they gave him twenty years.
Maybe we should raise our voice and ask somebody why.
But demonstrations are a drag, and besides, we're much too high.

[[Chorus)
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest
Anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends.

All three verses lampooned lack of involvement in some way. I don't think this would have been on mainstream radio, but I suspect I heard it repeatedly on the WQRS folk-music show around 1972.

[rb336]

yes, Phil Ochs, and it also had the sort of piano hijinx mentioned. It sounds like it should be an Ochs song, maybe not that one

[NickCharles]

Yep, I'm with Sandhouse; that sounds like Phil Ochs' "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends," from an LP-- which was pretty decent, and featured Warren Zevon on one track-- called "Pleasures of the Harbor."
It was written in reaction to a rather ugly true-life incident, which acquired some fame of its own, involving a woman being assaulted while numerous people who could have intervened, or at least called for help, did nothing at all.

[eno]

Here's a listen to the Phil Ochs song and the lyrics to follow along.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta_iKeH4tsg

[Honky Tonk]

Let's stop, Ok? I think I'm having flashbacks.

[Sandhouse]

So, Highjinx, are we getting any closer, or did I lead us down a dead end? What extinct radio format did you listen to back in the day, if not the WQRS folk show: Keener 13? Wixie? Radiant Radio 8? The RIF? Or the colorless "It's 1130 in Detroit, it's W [[dum-da-dum-da-dum) CAR?"

[NickCharles]

So, Highjinx, are we getting any closer, or did I lead us down a dead end? What extinct radio format did you listen to back in the day, if not the WQRS folk show: Keener 13? Wixie? Radiant Radio 8? The RIF? Or the colorless "It's 1130 in Detroit, it's W [[dum-da-dum-da-dum) CAR?"

I'm starting to wonder if, while we are all happily remembering the Ochs song, maybe highjinx2 is either thinking of a different tune, altogether, or perhaps pulling the collective leg.

[jcole]

I don't know if this is what you're thinking of, but it sort of fills the bill as funny protest song"; The Draft Dodger Rag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFFOUkipI4U

[Honky Tonk]

So, Highjinx, are we getting any closer, or did I lead us down a dead end? What extinct radio format did you listen to back in the day, if not the WQRS folk show: Keener 13? Wixie? Radiant Radio 8? The RIF? Or the colorless "It's 1130 in Detroit, it's W [[dum-da-dum-da-dum) CAR?"

OR, That strange "WABX" station, hosted by a guy named Dave Dixon, which was on that band NO ONE listened to, "FM", from 8 p.m. to 12 a.m. nightly.

[NickCharles]

OR, That strange "WABX" station, hosted by a guy named Dave Dixon, which was on that band NO ONE listened to, "FM", from 8 p.m. to 12 a.m. nightly.

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but that is almost certainly where my brother & I heard it. The rest of the LP came as a pleasant surprise.

[Sharnelle]

"One-One-Three-Oh
Dee-troit radio
Well naturally it's W-CAR,
In the city of cars it's W-CAR."

Not my choice of stations, but stored in my head, dormant until this moment.

[Honky Tonk]

"One-One-Three-Oh
Dee-troit radio
Well naturally it's W-CAR,
In the city of cars it's W-CAR."

Not my choice of stations, but stored in my head, dormant until this moment.

I remember they used to do "live" shows from the MI State Fair. They had an old car there, [[pre Model T?) with their call letters on it.

[Dan Wesson]

OR, That strange "WABX" station, hosted by a guy named Dave Dixon, which was on that band NO ONE listened to, "FM", from 8 p.m. to 12 a.m. nightly.

Ahhh WABX, we were so cool cause we had our little handheld radio's with them long antennas tuned to 99.5 FM.

A small merry band of us would take the bus downtown and go to the top of the Stott Bldg, and they would let us in the studio and we would grovel and do our variations of Firesign Theater skits.

[Bigb23]

arrrrg- And while I have early WABX photos and Rationals music stuck on my laptop, I'm here with this android tablit POS. arrrrrg.

[Bigb23]

arrrrg- And while I have early WABX photos and Rationals music stuck on my laptop, I'm here with this android tablit POS. arrrrrg.

arrrrrrrrrrrggggghhhhh!!!???????
arrrrgggg

[RaumVogel]

I didn't see those lyrics in the Phil Ochs tune, but it was a good listen...never heard it before.

[Honky Tonk]

Ahhh WABX, we were so cool cause we had our little handheld radio's with them long antennas tuned to 99.5 FM.

A small merry band of us would take the bus downtown and go to the top of the Stott Bldg, and they would let us in the studio and we would grovel and do our variations of Firesign Theater skits.

Does the name Betty Joe Beolowski mean anything? High..... on top of the David Stott building. LOVED what Phil Proctor used to do.

[CassTechGrad]

I always kept one of the buttons on my radio tuned to WJLB.
Leon the Lover the soul street strutter, Martha Jean the Queen, and "frantic" Ernie Durham.

[NickCharles]

So several of us fondly remember WABX and Firesign Theater. Good deal!!

[jcole]

Porgy Tirebiter...

[Honky Tonk]

Porgy Tirebiter...

He's a student like you.