Junk Food Junkie

Album

Single

Label

Warner Bros records .

Genre

Country pop

Media Type

45s

Duration

3:03

Composer(s)

Larry Groce

Entered Chart

Jan 10, 1976

Peak Date

Mar 20, 1976

Released

1975

Recorded

1975

Catalog #

Warner Bros. 8165

B-Side

Muddy Boggy Banjo Man

Larry Groce is a one-hit wonder, and he makes no bones about it. He's actually more of a country-music songwriter and radio host than an actual performing artist. He does alright though, recording the Disney series of Children's Favorites albums. But thanks to Dr. Demento, he will always be known to us as the "Junk Food Junkie" man. Background: in 1976, the whole United States went health-food crazy. It was yogurt and wheat germ and brown sugar and carob-coated sunflower seeds as far as the eye could see. You can see where this is coming from when you look at the history: The Baby Boomer generation (born in the 1940s) were just hitting their 30s and 40s, when it's time to quit partying and start jogging if you want to live much longer. By the way, the whole country also went on a jogging kick, too. Anyway, health food stores popped up like mushrooms at a Grateful Dead concert. Just like the 2000s saw a boom in "green" merchandising, the manufacturers of the 1970s immediately saw that they weren't going to sell anything unless it was labeled "health food," and more likely than not "100% natural." Of course the trend was exploited after awhile, and it was this time that Larry Groce chose to lampoon. It would be a shame to let the casual web visitor drop by and not fully appreciate the brilliant satire of this novelty hit single, so we're going to get unusually geeky this time. Let's break the lyrics down one reference at a time, for the historical preservation of it and so modern audiences don't miss anything: "Junkie" was of course slang for a drug addict, who leads a double life trying to dodge the law and still keep their drug habit. The point of the song is one of being secretly addicted to junk food while still appearing to one's peers to be a health nut. "Mr. Natural" is also a reference to hippie icon and underground cartoonist Robert Crumb and his white-bearded character "Mr. Natural" (you might have seen the 'Keep On Truckin' cartoon? That guy!). "Macrobiotic trips": Well, there were no real 'trips,' but 'macrobiotic' was a popular health food store buzzword. It would be the kind of thing you'd want in a grain or legume, thoroughly pulverized and processed so your lentil puree went down like a smoothie. Stay near a bathroom, because it's going to be a short trip through you. "Whole Earth Vitamin Bar": There was no such place, but there were many places just like what you'd expect; think the precursor to the modern-day juice bar. "Whole Earth" is another reference to the Whole Earth Catalog, another sacred hippie relic. "Commune" and "arts and crafts": Group-home living and alternative lifestyles (i.e. swingers and 'open marriages') were a common practice, usually trying to fashion themselves after the free-love communal living described in Robert A. Heinlein's novel Stranger In a Strange Land but ending up more in the Eldritch drug-hallucinating nightmare described in Harlan Ellison's short story Shattered Like a Glass Goblin instead. Incidentally, many of this age also tried to support themselves with arts-and-crafts. The macrame owls (their glass eyes will watch forever in our nightmares), wicker furniture, and velvet paintings you see in thrift stores today are the remnants of this movement. Euell Gibbons was a famous rustic-living and natural-diet guru who wrote lots of books on the subject, with titles like Stalking the Wild Asparagus, Beachcomber's Handbook, and Feast on a Diabetic Diet. John Keats didn't have anything to do with health nuts that we know of... this is the poet John Keats, who wrote Ode on a Grecian Urn. So, yeah, Greek art was in style too, and this bit of hyperbole merely states how dedicated he is to keeping brown rice handy. The various junk foods, of course, need no introduction, being very much present today in the same forms and mostly same names. Meanwhile, the bran muffins are a mercifully-distant memory. This is as it should be, because as anybody who lived in the '70s can tell you, all the food tasted exactly like you were eating the dried-out clippings after mowing the lawn. Moo!

You know I love that organic cooking
I always ask for more
And they call me Mr. Natural
On down to the health food store
I only eat good sea salt
White sugar don't touch my lips
And my friends is always
Begging me to take them
On macrobiotic trips
Yes, they are
Oh, but at night I stake out my strongbox
That I keep under lock and key
And I take it off to my closet
Where nobody else can see
I open that door so slowly
Take a peek up north and south
Then I pull out a Hostess Twinkie
And I pop it in my mouth
Yeah, in the daytime I'm Mr. Natural
Just as healthy as I can be
But at night I'm a junk food junkie
Good lord have pity on me
Well, at lunchtime
You can always find me
At the Whole Earth Vitamin Bar
Just sucking on my plain white yogurt
From my hand thrown pottery jar
And sippin' a little hand pressed cider
With a carrot stick for dessert
And wiping my face
In a natural way
On the sleeve of my peasant shirt
Oh yeah
Ah, but when that clock strikes midnight
And I'm all by myself
I work that combination
On my secret hideaway shelf
And I pull out some Fritos corn chips
Dr. Pepper and an Ole Moon Pie
Then I sit back in glorious expectation
Of a genuine junk food high
Oh yeah, in the daytime I'm Mr. Natural
Just as healthy as I can be
But at night I'm a junk food junkie
Good lord have pity on me
My friends down at the commune
They think I'm pretty neat
Oh, I don't know nothing about arts and crafts
But I give 'em all something to eat
I'm a friend to old Euell Gibbons
And I only eat homegrown spice
I got a John Keats autographed Grecian urn
Filled up with my brown rice
Yes, I do
Oh, but folks lately I have been spotted
With a Big Mac on my breath
Stumbling into a Colonel Sanders
With a face as white as death
I'm afraid someday they'll find me
Just stretched out on my bed
With a handful of Pringles Potato Chips
And a Ding Dong by my head
In the daytime I'm Mr. Natural
Just as healthy as I can be
But at night I'm a junk food junkie
Good lord have pity on me