Popular Song

Into one of the vitamin-mongering sanitary lunchrooms which steward the middle classes of Kansas City, reeled last week a strapping street sheik with Gershwin tintinnabulations at his fingertips. "Want coffee!" he pleaded. "Want coffee for a buggy ride! Thanks for the coffee! 'Thanks for the buggy ride'! Gimme a vitamin now, dearie. Need all the vitamins you got. Need a vitamin to take on a buggy ride. 'Thanks for the buggy ride.' THANKS for the buggy vitamins! Oh, Oh, OH! 'I had a wonderful time! Wonderful treat! Juh-huh-hust to hear the patter of hor-sez feet! THANKS for the buggy ride!"

At Princeton, N. J., a score of ribald Juniors cheered the arrival of a Prom girl whose escort had chartered a buggy in her honor-- imported it from still more rural districts at allegedly fabulous expense. "'THANKS for the Buggy Ride'! The Buggy, Buggy, Buggy Ride!" they caroled. "Lost all my pride! . . . Buggy-ridin'-lovin'! . . . I had a wonderful time!"

In Manhattan, in Chicago, at Denver, Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans, Quebec--similar rejoicing. Everywhere raucous youth snapped up "Thanks for the Buggy Ride" (words and music by one Jules Buffano; sponsor, an obscure San Francisco firm). Swiftly crabbed age constructed buggies and horses out of beaverboard, harness out of string, snatched wheels from baby perambulators, concocted numberless impromptu window displays. Awed jazz fanciers mentioned buggies and bananas in the same gin-whiffed breath.

Puritans and purists were vexed.