I Love These Signs/ I Think They're Great/ Too Bad They Were Killed/ By the Interstate

A couple years ago I read a 1966 book by William K. Zinsser called Pop Goes America, which addressed the issue of how “America has turned into a pop culture and will not be turning back.” The book was both stodgy and prophetic, and it’s best chapter was about old Burma Shave advertisements that used to be planted along the roadside. Brian’s dad recently forwarded me an email about those Burma Shave signs, and the email described the signs as “small red signs with white letters, about 100 feet apart, each containing 1 line of a 4 line couplet, and the obligatory 5th sign advertising Burma Shave, a popular shaving cream.”

The email points out that these ads were successful before there were interstate highways, and “everyone drove the old 2 lane roads.” Zinsser wrote that the signs are “part of our American folklore, the collective experience of a nation that invented the Sunday drive” and were enjoyable because they weren’t “force-fed to us and 20 million other TV viewers in one electronic gulp.” I just think they’re hilarious.

To kiss
A mug
That's like a cactus
Takes more nerve
Than it does practice
Burma-Shave

Candidate says
Campaign
Confusing
Babies kiss me
Since I've been using
Burma-Shave

The whale
Put Jonah
Down the hatch
But coughed him up
Because he scratched
Burma-Shave

Burma-Shave
Was such a boom
They passed
The bride
And kissed the groom

His cheek
Was rough
His chick vamoosed
And now she won't
Come home to roost
Burma-Shave

A whiskery kiss
For the one
You adore
May not make her mad
But her face will be sore
Burma-Shave

When Super-shaved
Remember, pard
You'll still get slapped
But not so hard
Burma-Shave

My job is
Keeping faces clean
And nobody knows
De stubble
I've seen
Burma-Shave

He tried
To cross
As fast train neared
Death didn't draft him
He volunteered
Burma-Shave

For more on the history of the signs, click here. For more signs themselves, click here.

Comments

[allan]

Wow, that brings back memories. I remember some south of McMinnville, just before you get to Whiteson. I can't remember the verse, even though we passed it every Sunday on our way to church. As Dan Quayle said, it's a terrible thing to lose one's mind. Thanks for the link. Cool and interesting blog, by the way -- keep up the good work.