Talk:The Purple People Eater

message: I have recently been in vietnam and in the war museum there is a picture of a US soldier next to a bomb with "purple people eater" written on it. agent orange was a chemical sprayed on the forests to kill the leaves on the trees and agent orange was almost exactly the same as "agent purple..."
the chemical caused numerous health problems in the Vietnamese and still does today.
any idea if theres any connection!
maybe just a "joke" by the soldier  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.10.36.211 (talk) 16:17, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: does nobody else remember Purple People Eater as being a game for the BBC Micro?  Everything2 has the tiniest mention here
Remember it, I wrote it, released through a little place in Romford.
Actually, was based on (cleanroom rewrite) another program in a mag for a different system, the movement logic was my own.
Movement logic, at first, used a recursive algorithm to decide if a direction was blocked, though this was later replaced in a rewrite for the somewhat slower Electron, as the recursive algorithm was just too slow. Ace of Risk (talk) 02:25, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  bbc game? 

message: The lyrics clearly state he eats Purple People.
"I said Mr. Purple People Eater, what's your line"
"He said eatin' purple people and it sure is fine"
The only dispute I see is the fact that the 1988 film "Purple People Eater" has a Purple People-Eater.
The article should be changed to reflect this.  However I think the fact that the title of the song does not reflect this should be retained.
:Since people are not generally purple, and the only reason the creature gives for not eating the human is that he is 'too tough', we need to consider the possibility that he is not only one eyed and one horned, but also colour blind. We can hardly wonder that, with such evolutionary disadvantages, this extraterrestrial species is so rarely seen these days.--kscally 09:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This qualifier would also not appear to protect Deep Purple from predation.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.2.40.144 (talk) 19:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Purple-People Eater 

message: The discussion of whether "purple" refers to the monster or the people it eats is uncited, and has an unencyclopedic, speculative tone, so I marked it as original research. Demian12358 (talk) 22:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It isn't "original research," it is good writing, of which there is way too little on Wikipedia.--Paul (talk) 21:38, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

text: This was a good song. More 02:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

text: It is rare because it is out of place.  The purpose of Wikipedia is to be informative, not entertaining. 99.174.233.4 (talk) 15:48, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research tag 

message: with this sentence:
:The song invokes phrases from several other hit songs from that era: "Short Shorts", by The Royal Teens, and "Tequila", by The Champs, both from earlier in 1958; and "Tutti Frutti" from 1955.
and will probably remove it unless someone brings up exactly what phrase, for example, is borrowed from Tequila. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 15:47, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The phrase borrowed from "Tequila" is the exclamation "Tequila!" (which is the entirety of that song's "lyrics") 66.249.175.245 (talk) 08:55, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  I am struggling 

message: This has been a subject of disagreement lately: the article had made a remark based on the assumption that the song's first-person narrator is not himself a "purple person", but PhilPH challenged this assumption as unfounded. I made a probably ill-worded edition to call Wooley (who does not have purple skin) the narrator, on the basis that the use of first-person inherently implies that the singer is the narrator, to which Phil responded, reasonably enough, "Clearly the experiences described in the song are not Wooley's, so why assume the narrator of the song is Wooley? Mick Jagger isn't the Devil."
In response to Phil's argument, I'd like to clarify that I agree that singing in first-person does not imply that the singer is the narrator in real life. What I should have said, rather, is that, because a song sung in the first person inherently asserts that the singer is the narrator, it implies that nothing about that assertion is controverted by the song itself, as sung (clearly a much narrower claim than what I originally said). I further concede that nothing about the lyrics or Wooley's delivery implies anything about the color of the narrator's skin, to an audience that only hears the performance. However, I maintain that a live performance by a non-purple-skinned singer would imply that the narrator does not have purple skin. Since Wooley did perform this song live (citation perhaps required, but can be found), I maintain that the song is clearly meant to be interpreted without the assumption that the narrator has purple skin. JudahH (talk) 19:26, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: You're giving it a much more ponderous philosophical interpretation than either Sheb Wooley or 99+% of his listeners gave it in 1958.  Purple was probably chosen in part because it's a particularly implausible hue for human skin... AnonMoos (talk) 17:57, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The ponderousness is not in support of some esoteric philosophical interpretation, but an attempt to spell out the reasoning behind what I expect most people would consider obvious: that the song is not meant to imply that the narrator has purple skin. You agree with that yourself, but PhilPH apparently does not. JudahH (talk) 20:48, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I missed this. Your philosophical justification is wholly convincing to me, and I'm proud to have prompted it. Phil PH (talk) 16:03, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

text: P.S. "I wouldn't eat you because you're so tough" is probably an additional reassurance (it's implied that Not only are you not purple, but also...). AnonMoos (talk) 18:08, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Color of narrator's skin 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Second season of show "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" also features this song and Purple People Eater himself also.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.252.126.125 (talk • contribs) 
:Per WP:IPCV you'll need to provide an independent source that's taken note of this use of the song. DonIago (talk) 02:40, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency 

message: Bill Ramsey did a German cover called "Wumba-Tumba Schokoladeneisverkäufer" (really!), which is at first glance a completely different subject, but in fact the lyrical content is pretty similar except for the fact that the alien also sells chocolate ice cream. Also, it has the hilarious addition of the narrator worrying the alien might ram its horn into his leg.
I'm sure some sources can be found to include this rather memorable version (it's mentioned in the German article), although the cover didn't chart. Jules TH 16 (talk) 23:12, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  German adaptation