"Cool Jerk" is a popular song written by Donald Storball and originally performed by The Capitols. Released in 1966, it reached No. 2 on the American R&B chart and No. 7 on the pop chart. The backing track for this song was actually recorded (secretly) by the Motown house band The Funk Brothers.
Per one of the Funk Brothers, the song was originally to be called "Pimp Jerk." This was taken from watching neighborhood pimps, who would dance in the clubs, but were too "cool" to do the jerk like regular folks. Their version was subsequently named "the Pimp Jerk." The producer was afraid that a song with the word pimp in the title would be banned or not receive much positive attention, and had the title changed to its current form.
The Go-Go's, Todd Rundgren, Big Trouble, Human Sexual Response, The La De Da's, The Creation, and The Coasters have covered the song. Todd Rundgren did his version in an odd time signature (7/4), giving an obviously jerky feel to the song. The Go-Go's covered the song for their 1982 album Vacation and later re-recorded it for their 1990 album Greatest.
In the feature film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Uncle Frank (Gerry Bamman) sings "Cool Jerk" in the shower. A version of the song with different lyrics ("Do the Cool Whip") is used in Cool Whip commercials. A recording of "Cool Jerk" by Ricardo Ray is featured in the feature film Donnie Brasco (1997). The song features in the film Standing in the Shadows of Motown, performed by the Funk Brothers with lead vocals by Bootsy Collins. The song is heard briefly in the animated feature, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted. Despite this reason, it is listed in some variations of the film's soundtrack.
Famous quotes containing the words cool and/or jerk:
“Constant fervor for a cause, though it may be the loftiest and our very own, betrays, like all things that rest on absolute faith, a lack of spiritual nobility: whose distinguishing mark is always—the cool glance.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“One farmer says to me, “You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;” and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)