Eddie Fisher, Fifties Singing Great, Dies at 82

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Eddie Fisher, one of the most renowned crooners of the fifties, passed away in Berkeley, California on September 22nd, following complications from hip surgery, the Los Angeles Times reports. Fisher was 82. Between 1950 and 1956, Fisher placed 19 singles in the Top Ten, including four Number One singles ("Wish You Were Here," "I'm Walking Behind You," "Oh! My Pa-Pa" and "I Need You Now").

Yet Fisher's recording career was nearly eclipsed by his personal life: He married three of Hollywood's most famous Actresses — Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor and Connie Stevens — over the span of a decade. Fisher and Reynolds had two children together, include actress Carrie Fisher, who portrayed Princess Leia in Star Wars.

Although Fisher's peak predated rock n' roll's dominance, his music did leave a mark on it: His 1956 single "Cindy, Oh Cindy" was covered by the Beach Boys in 1962, and Frank Zappa worked Fisher's "Oh! My Pa-Pa" into his 1972 track "Billy the Mountain."

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Song Stories

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Fishbone | 1985

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.

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