'Polka Dot Bikini' songwriter dies at 68

[rsmith6621]

Yes There Is Other News In The World
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060926/ap_on_en_mu/obit_vance


HARTFORD, Conn. - Songwriter Paul Vance, who earned pop culture immortality with the 1960 smash about a bashful bather, "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini," has died. He was 68.Vance and songwriting partner Lee Pockriss also co-wrote "Catch a Falling Star," a No. 1 hit for Perry Como in 1958.

But they had their biggest success with the song about the girl with a brand new bikini who "was afraid to come out of the locker, she was a nervous as she could be. ... Now she's afraid to come out of the water, and the poor little girl's turning blue."

[rurallib]

1. 'spose Fux News can run with this for a day to provide cover

for a day's worth of Bush fuckups?
BTW how would that sound as a rap song. OHHHH headache!

[Glorfindel]

2. I'm sorry to hear that. He brightened many lives with his songs

Maybe they're not great music, but I loved them when they were new and I still do. And, just by the way, 68 doesn't seem very old at all to me nowadays.... :(

[Newsjock]

3. NOT TRUE -- AP retracts story

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003187850

The man who co-wrote the song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" had the unsettling experience this week of reading his own obituary — the result of an impostor who went through life claiming to be the author of the 1960s smash hit.

On Tuesday, The Associated Press reported on the death of a 68-year-old man named Paul Van Valkenburgh of Ormond Beach, Fla., who claimed to have written the song under the name Paul Vance. The story cited the man's wife as the source for that claim.

But the music industry's real Paul Vance, a 76-year-old man from Coral Springs, Fla., is alive and well, and says the other Paul Vance appears to have made the whole thing up.