History Music / RayStevens

* ChristmasSongs: Most famously "Santa Claus Is Watching You". He released a novelty Christmas album, titled ''Christmas Through a Different Window'', in the late 1990s which included some {{Anti Christmas Song}}s. One track, titled "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (no relation to [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas the Tim Burton film]]) where [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad people call Santa un-PC]] because he smokes a pipe, wears fur, works only one day of the year, is "grossly overweight", etc. (But just to keep it from being too {{anvilicious}}, he admits that it was AllJustADream and says that even something politically incorrect can still be right.)

* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad: "Guilt for Christmas" hints at this.

* SavingChristmas: "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (from ''Christmas Through a Different Window'', and [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas completely unrelated to the film]]) shows PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad when SantaClaus is arrested and put on trial for several different crimes, including abusing his reindeer, hiring only [[ChristmasElves elves in his factory]], flying without FAA approval, billions of cases of unlawful entry, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and smoking tobacco]]. At the end, the judge, because he was one of Santa's "victims" of unlawful entry, dismisses all the charges. (Fortunately, this whole ordeal was nothing more than an AcidRefluxNightmare).

* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys:
** "Harry the Hairy Ape" is about an ape who escapes the city zoo and becomes so popular that he ends up with a music career.
** The title character's pet monkey in "Gitarzan", "who likes to get drunky and sing boogie-woogie and it sounds real funky."

* AcidRefluxNightmare: The story behind "The Nightmare Before Christmas".

** The 1984 album ''He Thinks He's Ray Stevens'' had a re-do of his 1962 single "Furthermore", changing it from a goofy MotorMouth song to a slower country waltz. He also changed a few of the lyrics, most notably altering the last verse so that it was [[BookEnds no longer identical to the first]].

** In "Bridget the Midget", he voices himself, the title character (his voice pitched up), and a LoonyFan (his voice pitched down).

* SoundEffectsBleep: In "We The People":

* ThematicSeries: "Erik the Awful" is this to "Ahab the Arab". The songs, which are both about a sort of wacky stereotypical foreigner, are structured very similarly, and even feature some of the same lines, though there's no direct mention of Ahab in "Erik".

** In "Bridget the Midget", he voices [[SoloDuet both himself and the title character]], whose voice is just his pitched up.

* MotorMouth: The original version of "Further More".

* BassoProfundo: Parodied in "The Dooright Family", where the bass singer in the titular gospel family band (voiced entirely by Ray) is asked to "go for another octave". He does (by way of studio trickery on Ray, who is a baritone at best in RealLife), causing him to [[MadeOfExplodium explode onstage]].

* BlowingARaspberry: He does this in "We The People":
-->To put it in words you might understand, if you had the common sense that God gave a billy goat, you'd no doubt noticed that your constituents, the electorate - that's us, voters - are onto your pork-barrel-special-interest-tax-and-spend-scam. Or, to put it more succinctly, [[BlowingARaspberry pffffft!]]

* DisneyVillainDeath: Non-villain example in "Mama's In the Sky With Elvis" - "Mama" was dancing on the balcony with her inflatable Elvis Presley doll, came too close to the edge, and fell off to her death.

** "Harry the Hairy Ape"

* EverythingsLouderWithBagpipes: "Bagpipes (That's My Bag)", where he uses his voice to imitate them.

* FallingBass: "Mr. Businessman" uses a chromatic variant, as the bassline in the verses (played on piano) descends by semitones.

* HarassingPhoneCall: "It's Me Again, Margaret" features several of these, with increasingly dirty content[[note]]or as close to it as PG-rated material gets[[/note]].

** In "Too Drunk To Fish", after drunkenly getting himself and Ray shipwrecked on a sand-barge, Harold [[MistakenForAfterlife mistakes the rescue helicopter's]] [[GoIntoTheLight searchlight for the Lord]], to which he prays for another chance, vowing to go sober. Harold makes good on his word and never touches alcohol ever again. Ray comments that Lord performs miracles in mysterious ways.

** "Moonlight Special" is a five-minute parody of ''Series/TheMidnightSpecial'', with Ray voicing a Creator/WolfmanJack parody called "The Sheepdog", along with style parodies of Gladys Knight and the Pips, Music/AliceCooper, and Music/JerryLeeLewis.
** Sammi Smith's "Help Me Make It Through the Night" in the style of Spike Jones.

* LudicrousGibs: The eventual fate of "Hugo The Human Cannonball".

But he just paused, and kinda staggered, and then he hiccuped

* RealMenHaveShortHair: "The Haircut Song" is about the terrible haircuts Ray has received from a range of psycho barbers. His description of 'The Macho Barber' and the haircut he gets is as follows:

* ReligionRantSong: "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?" is one about the hypocrisy of televangelists asking for money while appearing to be opulent themselves.

* VocalEvolution: Until about the early 1980s, he often sang his novelty songs in a nasal, goofy voice while using a smoother (albeit very strident) voice on the more serious songs. Eventually, he started using his natural voice on everything, and his more serious songs became less strident.

** "Sex Symbols" is a "duet" between Ray and "Julio Iglesias" ([[ItIsPronouncedTroPAY which Ray pronounces "Joo-le-oh" despite constant corrections]]). "Julio"'s voice is just Ray impersonating him.

** Johnny Mathis' "Misty" as a bluegrass song.

---> Please tell Nancy Pelosi\\

** In "We The People":
--->We've heard from Hannity[[note]]Sean[[/note]], [[Radio/GlennBeck Beck]], and [[Radio/RushLimbaugh Limbaugh]]\\

* NoNudityTaboo: The Streak's general modus operandi.
-->He ain't crude (boogity, boogity)\\
He ain't lewd (boogity, boogity)\\
He's just in the mood to run in the nude.

** In "I Won't Be Home For Christmas", when Ray's brother-in-law [[ChristmasLightsChaos messed with the Christmas lights]], he ended up blowing out the fuse box, knocking out the heat, and caused all the plumbing to freeze.

** In "I Won't Be Home For Christmas", when Ray's brother-in-law [[ChristmasLightsChaos messed with the Christmas lights, he ended up blowing out the fuse box, knocking out the heat, and caused all the plumbing to freeze.

** "Everything is Beautiful" was a TropeCodifier for the use of this in a rousing, sentimental ballad.

** Of course, used in "I Need Your Help, Music/BarryManilow" to parody Manilow's use of the same.

** In "I Won't Be Home For Christmas", when Ray's brother-in-law messed with the Christmas lights, he ended up blowing out the fuse box, knocking out the heat, and caused all the plumbing to freeze.

* WhatsHeGotThatIAintGot: In "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufPzjoKc_mQ Can He Love You Half As Much As I?]]", the whole song is this after Ray receives a DearJohnLetter from his girl telling him he found a perfect guy:

You say he wrote a computer program

* ElvisHasLeftThePlanet: According to "I Saw Elvis in a UFO", he was abducted by aliens. Also on the ship are "Colonel" Tom Parker(Elvis's manager), Creator/HowardHughes, Liberace, and Jimmy Hoffa.

-->Noble Lumpkin? This here's the Illustrious Potentate. *''pause''* I said it's the Illustrious Potentate. *''pause''* The '''Illustrious'''-- Coy, dadblame it, this here's Bubba!

-->'''Ray:''' For what this trip cost, we could've gone to Hawaii, twice! First class!

-->Now you've heard the Bible stories, I guess\\

-->Well, he told that Samson didn't take no sass\\

-->As she backed out of the drive she hit my Harley\\

* NewhartPhoneCall[=/=]RepeatingSoTheAudienceCanHear: "Shriner's Convention" consists of a one-sided dialogue, via hotel phone, between two members of the Hahira, Georgia, delegation: leader "Illustrious Potentate" (Bubba), and member "Noble Lumpkin" (Coy), whose wild antics and failure to show up for functions are driving Bubba crazy. Over the course of the conversation, we hear from Bubba about Coy's various exploits which include getting his Harley-Davidson motorcycle into his hotel room and, later on, getting his bike atop the high diving board of the hotel swimming pool, being in said pool with "a bunch of them waitresses from the cocktail lounge", and getting a "little redhead" (to quote Bubba) to streak through their banquet yelling out the "secret code", wearing nothing but Coy's fez ('cuz Coy's the only one that has a fez with a propeller on top).

-->''It was a macho barber shop. Hair dryers were mounted on a rifle rack. [[VanityIsFeminine There were no mirrors.]] The barber chair was a Peterbilt...Barber walked in; he was huge, seven feet tall, three hundred pounds of spring steel and rawhide wearin' a hard hat, [[CigarChomper chewin' a cigar]], had a t-shirt on said, "I hate musicians". Threw me in the chair, sneered and said, "What'll it be pal?" Now a lot of people would be intimidated in a situation like this...I was not. I am what I am, play my piano, and sing my little songs. I looked him right in the eye and I said, "I'm a logger - just up from Coos Bay, Oregon. Been toppin' trees - quite possibly the tough...(cough) toughest man in the entire world". He said, "All right!" he gave me a haircut and I walked out of there friends, my hair was gone! Made Series/{{Kojak}} look like William Lee Golden. Yeah, had a tremendous craving to operate heavy equipment.''

* SelfBackingVocalist / SoloDuet: Stevens did a ''lot'' of his own backing vocals:

** In "Bridget the Midget", he voices both himself and the title character, whose voice is just his pitched up.

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: Stevens always balanced his goofy, side-splittingly funny songs with serious material, meaning ballads and gospel. Two of his biggest hits -- 1970's "Everything is Beautiful" and 1975's "Misty" -- are prime examples.

--->'''Mildred:''' Wait a minute!\\

* MeanwhileBackAtThe Motel: This is the transition from the verses to the skits on "Shriner's Convention".

-->''It was a macho barber shop. Hair dryers were mounted on a rifle rack. [[VanityIsFemenine There were no mirrors.]] The barber chair was a Peterbilt...Barber walked in; he was huge, seven feet tall, three hundred pounds of spring steel and rawhide wearin' a hard hat, [[CigarChomper chewin' a cigar]], had a t-shirt on said, "I hate musicians". Threw me in the chair, sneered and said, "What'll it be pal?" Now a lot of people would be intimidated in a situation like this...I was not. I am what I am, play my piano, and sing my little songs. I looked him right in the eye and I said, "I'm a logger - just up from Coos Bay, Oregon. Been toppin' trees - quite possibly the tough...(cough) toughest man in the entire world". He said, "All right!" he gave me a haircut and I walked out of there friends, my hair was gone! Made Series/{{Kojak}} look like William Lee Golden. Yeah, had a tremendous craving to operate heavy equipment.''

but no, [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar the whole famn damily's got to show]].

*** Occurs in "Vacation Bible School" when the narrator recalls pouring some moonshine into the lemonade that the pastor was drinking:
--->Well, he told that Samson didn't take no sass\\

*** Another example in "Gone for Good":
--->As she backed out of the drive she hit my Harley\\

* NarrativeProfanityFilter: In "Gone for Good";
-->''As she backed out of the drive she hit my Harley\\

Hollered something at me that I can't repeat''