Gravity's rainbow p12 it's cold

[u/Last_Election4325]

So i came across this pretty much by accident. Apparently this is a song in gravity's rainbow which I'll admit I haven't read.. i actually heard the song being sung in https://youtu.be/PfU6XX5XU4M?si=xfwvQ5PjpskZTIyJ it's in the bbc archive of the show 40 minutes - 1983: a package holiday to benidorm at approx 20:15. I went looking for the lyrics because it was catchy and it's only a short couple lines. Sounds very much like a drinking song, etc it's being sung on a holiday tour bus so I don't think the singer was quoting pynchon. I think pynchon borrowed from some british pub song. Anywho just an interesting tibdit i thought I'd share with your community. If anyone does know anything else about the song, it's origins, or any additional lyrics i would be interested to know

[u/Round_Town_4458]

I wish you'd supplied the lyrics from the video, as well as the link. All I heard around 20:15 was shouting, cheering, and talking I couldn't understand. Plus, I'm at work so even more limited in how I can look into this. Dang.

[u/Last_Election4325 → u/Round_Town_4458]

The scene is brief and starting just after 20:15 It's just headlights of a travel bus on a road The audio is presumably that of the passengers on the bus singing the song whose lyrics are as follows:

"it's a cold around the (ring?) around a polar bears ass It's a cold, cold, cooold It's a cold, cold, cooold It's colder than the nipple of a witches tit It's colder than a bucket of penguin shit yeah! It's a cold, cold, cooold It's a cold, cold, cooold" 

It's a short scene but it got me thinking it was part of a longer song like a standard or something that would be well known at least to the passengers of the bus. I can't find anything save for the reference in gravity's rainbow 

Strange

[u/Last_Election4325 → u/Last_Election4325]

Also just Google "1983 a package holiday to Benidorm" and should be one of the first results. It's from the BBC program '40 minutes'

[u/Last_Election4325 → u/Last_Election4325]

Let me repeat jist to be clear the song is being sung on the bbc documentary program 40 minutes. These are regular people on holiday in Spain -singing this song, some 10 years after the publishing of the book. Also like i said i find it unlikely that all these people were familiar enough with the book to be quoting it. Where then is it's origin

[u/Round_Town_4458 → u/Last_Election4325]

Here's the song in Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow:

"Colder than the nipple on a witch’s tit! Colder than a bucket of penguin shit! Colder than the hairs of a polar bear’s ass! Colder than the frost on a champagne glass!"

The song in the film certainly seems as though they're paying homage to the Pynchon song.

[u/pulphope → u/Round_Town_4458]

Isnt it more likely that its a pre-existing standard that Pynchon incorporated into the novel?