Right Said Fred (song)

"Right Said Fred"
Single by Bernard Cribbins
B-side	"Quietly Bonkers"
Released	29 June 1962[1]
Studio	Abbey Road Studios
Genre	Novelty song
Length	2:20
Label	Parlophone
Songwriter(s)	Ted Dicks and Myles Rudge
Producer(s)	George Martin
Bernard Cribbins singles chronology
"The Hole in the Ground" (1962) "Right Said Fred" (1962) "Gossip Calypso" (1962)

"Right Said Fred" (also written "Right, Said Fred")^[2] is a novelty song of 1962 written by Ted Dicks and Myles Rudge.^[3][4]

It is about three moving men (Fred, Charlie, and the unnamed narrator) trying without success to move a large and unwieldy piece of furniture from an apartment. The item has feet, a seat, handles and candleholders and is never identified but is often interpreted as being a piano. In the animated film version (see below) it is depicted as such; however, in the 1970 television performance of the song on the sketch show Cribbins it is depicted as a kind of small pipe organ.

The movers eventually give up after dismantling the piece of furniture and partially demolishing the building – including removing a door, a wall, and the ceiling – and taking numerous tea breaks.^[5]

The lyrics do not specify whether Fred recovers from "half a ton of rubble on the top of his dome" (slang for head) prior to the others having a final tea break and going home. Dicks said that he was inspired to write the song by events that transpired when he employed movers to move a grand piano he had bought. The band Right Said Fred is named after the song.^[6]