Rubber Biscuit

"Rubber Biscuit" is a doo-wop song by The Chips, recorded in 1956. It was famously covered by The Blues Brothers, among many other artists as well as featuring in the 1973 film Mean Streets. Label credit for writing the song was given to Chips lead singer Charles Johnson and Adam R. Levy. Levy, though, was the son of label owner Morris Levy, who was notorious for adding either his or his son's names to songwriting credits in order to claim partial, or in some cases all composer royalties on songs they did not write. There's actually no evidence that Morris or Adam ever actually wrote any songs.

Few of the lyrics can actually be understood, as they are sung in the scat manner. The scat is interrupted every few bars for short one-liners, most of which are implicit references to the singer's poverty and the low-grade food he eats: a "wish sandwich" (where he has two slices of bread and wishes he had some meat), a "ricochet biscuit" (which is supposed to bounce off the wall and into your mouth, and when it doesn't, "you go hungry"), also a "cold-water sandwich" and a "Sunday-go-to-meeting-bun" The song closes with the question "What do you want for nothing? Rubber biscuit?"

"Rubber Biscuit" became the theme tune to Jimmy's Food Factory, a programme about supermarket's food tricks on BBC One. It is The Chips' version that is played at the beginning and end of each show. It was also featured in the 1990 John Waters film, Cry-Baby.

The Chips were teenage friends in New York: Charles Johnson (lead vocal), Nathaniel Epps (baritone), Paul Fulton (bass), Sammy Strain and Shedrick Lincoln (tenors). "Rubber Biscuit" started life as Johnson's answer to the marching rhythms of the Warwick School For Delinquent Teenagers while he was an intern there.

When Josie Records heard the tune they signed the group and the record was issued in September 1956. Although it did not chart, "Rubber Biscuit" became an instant east coast radio favourite, and saw its performers touring alongside The Dells, Cadillacs and Bo Diddley, but the momentum gained by their debut single was waning and the group broke up at the end of 1957. Only Sammy Strain went on to success in the music industry, as a member of Little Anthony & The Imperials from about 1961 to 1972 when he left to join The O'Jays. Strain left the O'Jays in 1992 to return to The Imperials, where he remained until his retirement in 2004.