B-side Teen Years Recorded 1961 Length 2:26 | Released July 1961 Genre Pop, novelty Label Mercury Records | |
"Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills" is a novelty song written and performed by Ray Stevens. It was released as a single in 1961 and became Stevens' first Hot 100 single, peaking at #35 in September. Its lyrics tell of a fictional "wonder drug" that, when taken in a daily dose, can cure a myriad of ailments, much in the same way unscrupulous patent medicine salesmen marketed their wares in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The song is also notable for having the second-longest title (104 characters) of any single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the longest of any original song; the only longer title to have charted on the Hot 100 was "Medley: Intro 'Venus' / Sugar Sugar / No Reply / I'll Be Back / Drive My Car / Do You Want to Know a Secret / We Can Work It Out / I Should Have Known Better / Nowhere Man / You're Going to Lose That Girl / Stars on 45" by the Stars on 45, a medley that was legally required to list all of the component songs as part of its official title for copyright reasons. The song seems to be referenced by the rap group D12 in the song Purple Pills and by Kritikal in "Green and Purple".
Chart run
Billboard Hot 100 (6 weeks, entered August 21): Reached #35
Cashbox (8 weeks, entered August 19): 99, 81, 69, 59, 52, 42, 38, 61