King Size Papa
"King Size Papa" is a 1948 dirty blues song by Julia Lee and Her Boy Friends. The Lee's eighth single, penned by Benny Carter and Paul Vance, was recorded on November 11, 1947 and released on the Capitol Americana label under #40082. The song entered the charts on February 14, 1948 and peaked at number one on the US Billboard R&B chart. The song, written in the verse-and-refrain twelve-bar blues form, stayed in the first place for more than two months, in the charts for six, crossed over to the pop chart, and remains Lee's most-remembered song. With sensuality being at the core of Lee's style, the song is still being selected as one of the few top sexually risqué ones in the 21st century.
The text of this song, intended for a broad audience, is overtly sexual, as was typical for African-American songs of the post-war decade. Julia Lee and Her Boy Friends in this "salacious and fun" song create images of objects of great size, length, or height to titillate both the white and black listeners, although the song is not as suggestive as one would expect from the title. While the topic was not new, the slightly mocking vocals and Carter's saxophone solo assured the amusement.
In popular culture
- In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the song was used by Pillsbury in its "Grands! biscuits" television commercials; its double entendre lyrics served to describe the atypically large size of the product.
- A version of this song was also used in the 1999 Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence comedy film, Life.