No, it’s not about Trump, though it would be deserved given his privateering of the Lincoln Memorial for his July 4th celebration. It’s that nearly-lost kind of pop tune, the dance craze song. The early ’60s were full of them after after “The Twist” became an international phenomenon. The Larks, originally the Meadowlarks, were a Los Angeles trio that never had another hit after this one reached No. 7 in January 1965. Here they are on the nighttime “Dick Clark Show” a couple of months before that, and no, that’s not LeVar Burton on the right, it’s a guy named Ted Walters.
Naturally, the song’s success spawned a spate of imitators, most notably “Cool Jerk” by the Capitols. The uncredited backing band here is the Funk Brothers, the studio musicians who backed most of Motown’s acts. One of them claims the song was originally callled “Pimp Jerk,” so named because the pimps who went to dance clubs considered themselves too cool to do the jerk with real conviction.
Dance-craze songs haven’t disappeared entirely. Millennials got their own dance move called the jerk, and a song to go with it, when the New Boyz released “You’re a Jerk” in 2009.
