Julie London / Yummy, Yummy, Yummy / 1968
Yummy, Yummy, Yummy
playful but knowingly seductive, with an undertone of wry self-amusement
Julie London takes a throwaway bubblegum novelty hit originally made famous by Ohio Express and strips away its cartoonish innocence, recasting it through her smoky, world-weary delivery as something closer to a knowing, sensual come-on. The lyric itself is simple confectionery-themed baby talk, but the interpretive interest lies entirely in the gap between the childlike text and the adult voice performing it.
desire as appetite innocence versus experience vocal persona and irony pop novelty repurposed as torch material
Who's speaking
a first-person lover addressing a partner directly, praising them in food and candy metaphors; the voice is adoring but, given London's delivery, never fully naive
What happens
The song doesn't develop a plot so much as circle the same declaration of infatuation three times, each verse restating that the singer is consumed by love and that the beloved is irresistibly sweet, before dissolving into wordless scatting and a closing vamp that trails off rather than resolves.
How it's built
Built on a simple verse-chorus-vamp loop typical of late-60s bubblegum pop: two near-identical verses, a repeated hook-chorus, a scat break standing in for a bridge, and a fade-out restating the title phrase. The repetition is the point -- the song insists on its own simplicity.
Section by section
Opening hook
“got love in my tummy”
The central image fuses romantic feeling with literal digestion, reducing desire to pure appetite. Sung by London rather than a teen pop group, the line's silliness becomes almost a private joke, as if she's aware of how incongruous the words are in her mouth.
First verse
“good enough to eat thing”
The food metaphor tips from affection into something more bodily. In the original version this reads as innocent exaggeration; in London's reading, inflected by her torch-singer phrasing, it carries a sly, adult undertone.
Chorus
The repeated declarations of wanting to hold and kiss the beloved function less as narrative movement than as incantation -- a loop of reassurance that substitutes repetition for development, typical of the bubblegum form the song comes from.
Scat break
The wordless vocalizing strips language away entirely, letting rhythm and vocal tone carry the romantic charge. It's a moment where London's jazz background surfaces briefly inside an otherwise pop-novelty arrangement.
Closing vamp
The fade on the title phrase refuses closure, leaving the song suspended in its own repetition rather than resolving to a final statement, which suits its circular, mantra-like construction.
Craft
- extended metaphor
- Love is rendered entirely through food and sweetness imagery -- sugar, spice, peaches and cream -- collapsing romantic and physical appetite into one register.
- childlike diction
- Simple, repetitive phrasing and nonsense scat syllables mimic nursery-rhyme or playground language, which contrasts pointedly with London's sophisticated vocal persona.
- anaphora
- Repeated openings like declarations of what the singer loves to do build a chant-like insistence rather than narrative progression.
Reading it
The most persuasive reading treats this as a performance of irony or at least amused distance: a seasoned torch singer taking deliberately disposable, teenybopper material and reanimating it with adult vocal shading, inviting listeners to hear both the childish surface and the sly sensuality underneath simultaneously. An alternative, more charitable reading is that London is simply having fun with a hit single and playing it straight, treating the cute wordplay at face value without any layered commentary -- plausible, though the mismatch between her vocal persona and the song's source register makes the ironic reading hard to avoid.
Context
"Yummy Yummy Yummy" was written by Arthur Resnick and Joey Levine and became a major hit for the bubblegum pop group Ohio Express in 1968. Julie London, known for sultry jazz and pop standards, recorded a cover the same year, which is unusual territory for her catalogue; I don't have confirmed details about the specific recording session or her stated motivations for choosing the song.
Listen for
- the contrast between London's low, relaxed contralto and the song's bouncy, juvenile melody
- how she phrases the food-based lines -- straight or with audible amusement
- the shift in energy during the scat break, which leans more toward her jazz roots
- whether the arrangement leans into novelty-pop production or smooths it toward adult contemporary easy listening
About Julie London
Julie London was an American singer and actress whose career spanned more than 40 years. A torch singer noted for her contralto voice, London recorded over thirty albums of pop and jazz standards between 1955 and 1969.
1926 - 2000 / United States
Full biography and catalogue