1 of 1- RadioActive
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How Many Of These "Lost Factor" Records Have You Heard On The Radio?
It's a complicated explanation which I'll leave to the article, but radio researcher Sean Ross has compiled a long list of the all-time "Lost Factor" songs - hits that got plenty of exposure when they first reached the charts, but for some reason get no airplay today. You can see the entire list of them at the linked article below.
(Kind of reminds me of Dale Patterson's unique site, "Oh Wow! The Songs Radio Forgot".)
The Lost Factor Vs. Billboard's 'Ghosted Hits'
- Forward Power
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Re: How Many Of These "Lost Factor" Records Have You Heard On The Radio?
While with my most recent stations, their weekend oldies shows definitely did play a bunch of the '60s and '70s songs mentioned in the article... not often, but I did see them in the playlists on occasion.
- Shorty Wave
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Interesting article, thanks for sharing RadioActive. Many of the listed songs from the 60s & 70s are in rotation on AM740. In fact, fairly recently I heard “They’re Coming To Take Me Away Ha Haa” by Napoleon XIV, a fairly odd song that I have heard maybe twice in my life! They also play Sinatra’s “That’s Life” fairly regularly.
- RadioActive
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I've told this story here before, but when "They're Coming To Take Me Away" came out, I was a little kid and went crazy (you should pardon the expression) for the song. If you can call it a "song."
Before they banned it and it disappeared off the airwaves, I remember tuning around the dial as a young DXer and landing on CJBC 860, which was playing a version of the novelty number I'd never heard before. I remember thinking, "Wow, it's so popular they recorded a version in French!"
It wasn't until after I bought the 45 that I realized that what the CBC French station had actually played was the flip side of the record, where the entire thing was replayed backwards! But despite growing up with Chez Helene, I really thought it was French!
Interestingly, on the album, the cover lists the backwards track, but it's actually an answer record by "Josephine XV" called "I'm Happy They Took You Away, Ha Ha." The problem with that is, Jerry Samuels (aka Napoleon XIV) has said that the song is actually about a guy who goes insane when his dog runs away - hence the reference to "you mangy mutt" in the lyrics. But "Josephine's" inclusion makes it seem like a woman was being called a dog, only making this novelty record even less politically correct today. 
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Thread Starter- mic'em
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Re: How Many Of These "Lost Factor" Records Have You Heard On The Radio?
Yes, it was in reverse, I recall my friends would play it constantly on a jukebox where we hung out at until the owner of the restaurant had it removed lol.
- Radiowiz
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Nothing like a nice ORANGE 45 with the song on side A and the song backwards on side B with the actual writing backwards on side B.
- paterson1
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Re: How Many Of These "Lost Factor" Records Have You Heard On The Radio?
They're Coming To Take Me Away was on the CHUM chart for six weeks and likely played for about eight weeks. It peaked at #7 on CHUM and #2 across Canada on the RPM chart. What stations banned the cut? A novelty "song" like this normally doesn't have a long shelf life and once most listeners have heard it nine or ten times the interest dies. Dr. Demento played the song from time to time on his syndicated radio program, in 1975.
A lot of the selections listed in the Lost Factor for 80's music are pretty weak. A few gems but a lot of B and C songs that didn't amount to a lot, and some likely had more regional popularity.
- RadioActive
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I recall that in those less politically correct days, there was a big outcry about making fun of the mentally ill and most stations pulled the tune even while it was still popular. I remember thinking how weird that was, little suspecting what the future would hold.
"Samuels’ worry that he would draw criticism was right; radio stations across the country banned the record after receiving complaints from doctors and institutions claiming that the song “hurt their image.” After five weeks, the song dropped from the charts."
The Story Behind ‘They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!’
What I never knew was that Napoleon XIV returned in 1988 with a sequel called "They're Coming To Get Me Again, Ha Haaa!" How I missed this one, I'll never know. But after listening to it, maybe it's a good thing I did!
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Thread Starter- Chrisphen
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Re: How Many Of These "Lost Factor" Records Have You Heard On The Radio?
Lard did a rather bracing cover of it.
- RadioActive
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Re: How Many Of These "Lost Factor" Records Have You Heard On The Radio?
I'm not sure if this is funny or just an abomination. Maybe both!
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Thread Starter- Lorne
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Re: How Many Of These "Lost Factor" Records Have You Heard On The Radio?
RadioActive wrote:
I recall that in those less politically correct days, there was a big outcry about making fun of the mentally ill and most stations pulled the tune even while it was still popular. I remember thinking how weird that was, little suspecting what the future would hold.
RA, I was six years old when that record was a hit, and I also liked it a lot (as was usually the case with novelty records I heard on CHUM when I was growing up). But I noticed that it suddenly went from getting a lot of airplay to getting none at all, and I wondered why this was given that I hadn't been hearing it for all that long. So I said something about this to my mother, and she explained that there had been a major outcry against it from people who felt that it made fun of mental illness and that this was why it was no longer being played. I've read that this situation resulted in it having a very unusual chart run on many stations -- even for a novelty song -- and so I checked the relevant charts on the excellent CHUM Tribute Site. It entered the chart at #24 (as the CHUMdinger for making the biggest jump that week) then went 13-7, and then after only three weeks started dropping which explains why I noticed that it suddenly went from getting a lot of airplay to none at all. It went 11-23-32 for the rest of its run, and my guess is that it didn't get played at all during that time and that it was only on the chart because it was still selling.
And I say this not just because of my own recollection, but from what I've read that happened elsewhere. For instance, on the WABC chart site they have the following note at (when it was still #4):
SPECIAL NOTE: "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" by
Napoleon XIV (on the Warner Brothers label) generated massive
amounts of protest in New York and elsewhere. The protests mostly
came from mental health professionals, advocates for mental
health, and families of those afflicted with mental illness or
psychological/psychiatric disorders. Both New York Top 40
stations (WABC and WMCA) banned airplay of the song; WABC doing so
in the middle of last week's survey, when the song reached its
peak position. WABC acknowledged this on the air, continued to
list the song on the survey, and its position was noted during
Cousin Brucie's Top 20 countdown on Tuesday evenings, but it was
never again played on the air.
- mace
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Re: How Many Of These "Lost Factor" Records Have You Heard On The Radio?
Take Me Away had a six week run on the Hot 100 with a #50 debut the week of July 23, 1966. The balance of its chart run went 11-5-3-5-37. The "song" made a second Hot 100 appearance in September 1973 going 94-94-87-90.