"Fish Heads" is a novelty song by comedy rock duo Barnes and Barnes, featured on their 1980 album Voobaha. It has often been played on the Dr. Demento show, and is the second-most honored song in Demento show history.
The song is about fish heads and all the things they can (or, more often, cannot) do, such as playing baseball, wearing sweaters, dancing, playing drums, or being seen drinking cappuccino in Italian restaurants with Oriental women. It is accompanied by a high-pitched chorus, achieved by speeding up the tape, which repeats the original's chorus. The song was among the most requested and aired on Kids America, a children's radio program aired over American Public Radio in the 1980s. The song's extreme popularity on the program nearly caused it to become a signature song of the series as it regularly came in as the #1 song requested out of several each day.
Actor Bill Paxton directed and appeared in the music video for the song, which aired on NBC television on Saturday Night Live, on December 6, 1980.
I remember hearing parts of this song when I was a very young kid. I heard it right after hearing "Eat It" for the first time on some MTV special. Like my experiences with "Shaving Cream" I did not hear it again until adulthood, when in 2005 I downloaded a copy misattributed to They Might Be Giants. Didn't find out the identity of the true artists until a few years later. My dad was always a big fan of the song, calling my brother Ish "Roly-Poly Ish-head". He doesn't do that any more though.