You're a Mean One, Mr Grinch

"You're a Mean One, Mr Grinch" is a song written for the 1966 TV special, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It has become the Grinch character's signature song and a holiday classic.

## You're a Mean One, Mr Grinch

### Featured in

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966), How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (2000), The Grinch, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! : The Musical

### Genre

Jazz and blues, Musical, Hip hop (Tyler the Creator's version), Rock (Small Town Titans version)

## Development

Dr Seuss and old friend, Chuck Jones, were working on a television adaptation of his book, "How The Grinch Stole Christmas". German composer and songwriter Albert Hague was called in by his agent who asked if he was interested in being apart of a Dr Seuss project. Hague told his agent to have Seuss come to his house, as he described it, not because he's a bigger deal than Seuss, but because he had a "better piano".

Seuss gave Hague some sketches and lyrics for the composer to work with. The following audition afterwords took just three minutes. Once he performed a single chorus, Seuss, as Hague put it, said "Anyone who slides an octave on the word 'Grinch' gets the job."

Thurl Ravenscroft, known for voicing Tony the Tiger and having sung as the lead Singing Bust in the Haunted Mansion attraction, was brought in as part of the chorus for the two other songs in the film. Near the end of the session, he was then invited to perform the Grinch's song. Thurl was upset that his name was left out of the credits of the film and Seuss agnologed it. He came up to Thurl soon after the film's release and apologised. Then, he wrote a letter to the columnists telling how Thurl brought the song to life.

## Lyrics

*You're a Mean One, Mr Grinch*

*You really are a heel*

*You're as cuddly as a cactus*

*You're as charming as an eel, Mr Grinch*

*You're a bad banana with a*

*greasy black peel*

*You're a monster, Mr Grinch*

*Your heart's an empty hole*

*Your brain is full of spiders*

*You've got garlic in your sole, Mr Grinch*

*I wouldn't touch you with a*

*thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole*

*You're a vile one, Mr Grinch*

*You have termites in your smile*

*You have all the tender sweetness*

*Of a seasick crocodile, Mr Grinch*

*Given the choice between the two of you,*

*I'd take the Seasick crocodile*

*You're a foul one, Mr Grinch*

*You're a nasty wasty skunk*

*Your heart is full of unwashed socks*

*Your soul is full of gunk, Mr Grinch*

*The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote:*

*"Stink, stank, stunk!"*

*You're a rotter, Mr Grinch*

*You're the king of sinful sots*

*Your heart's a dead tomato*

*splotched with moldy purple spots, Mr Grinch*

*Your soul is an appalling dump heap, overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable*

*mangled up in tangled up knots*

*You nauseate me, Mr Grinch*

*With a nauseas super-naus*

*You're a crooked, jerky Jockey*

*And you drive a crooked hoss, Mr Grinch*

*You're a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich*

*With arsenic sauce*

## Covers and other versions

* Tyler the Creator (2018)
* Jim Carrey (2000)
* Lindsey Stirling (2017)
* The Robertsons (2013)
* Gary Hoey (1995)
* The Misfits (2013)
* Small Town Titans (2018)
* Broadway Musical Version (1994)
* Darius Rucker (2014)
* Kat Tingey (2006)

## External Links

https://magazine.uc.edu/famousalumni/tv/grinch.html