You know I love that organic cooking
 I always ask for more
 And they call me Mr. Natural
 On down to the health food store
 I only eat good sea salt
 White sugar don't touch my lips
 And my friends is always
 Begging me to take them
 On macrobiotic trips
 Yes, they are
 Oh, but at night I stake out my strongbox
 That I keep under lock and key
 And I take it off to my closet
 Where nobody else can see
 I open that door so slowly
 Take a peek up north and south
 Then I pull out a Hostess Twinkie
 And I pop it in my mouth
 Yeah, in the daytime I'm Mr. Natural
 Just as healthy as I can be
 But at night I'm a junk food junkie
 Good lord have pity on me
 Well, at lunchtime
 You can always find me
 At the Whole Earth Vitamin Bar
 Just sucking on my plain white yogurt
 From my hand thrown pottery jar
 And sippin' a little hand pressed cider
 With a carrot stick for dessert
 And wiping my face
 In a natural way
 On the sleeve of my peasant shirt
 Oh yeah
 Ah, but when that clock strikes midnight
 And I'm all by myself
 I work that combination
 On my secret hideaway shelf
 And I pull out some Fritos corn chips
 Dr. Pepper and an Ole Moon Pie
 Then I sit back in glorious expectation
 Of a genuine junk food high
 Oh yeah, in the daytime I'm Mr. Natural
 Just as healthy as I can be
 But at night I'm a junk food junkie
 Good lord have pity on me
 My friends down at the commune
 They think I'm pretty neat
 Oh, I don't know nothing about arts and crafts
 But I give 'em all something to eat
 I'm a friend to old Euell Gibbons
 And I only eat homegrown spice
 I got a John Keats autographed Grecian urn
 Filled up with my brown rice
 Yes, I do
 Oh, but folks lately I have been spotted
 With a Big Mac on my breath
 Stumbling into a Colonel Sanders
 With a face as white as death
 I'm afraid someday they'll find me
 Just stretched out on my bed
 With a handful of Pringles Potato Chips
 And a Ding Dong by my head
 In the daytime I'm Mr. Natural
 Just as healthy as I can be
 But at night I'm a junk food junkie
 Good lord have pity on me


 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 From _The Wacky Top 40_ by Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo (Holbrook, Mass. :
 Bob Adams Publishers, 1993)
 This silly song about addiction to such goodies as corn chips, moon
 pies, and Twinkies was written and performed by a self-confessed junk
 food junkie.
 "That's the way I always ate when I was a kid," admitted Larry Groce.
 "No matter how hard my mother tried, I ended up eating a peanut butter
 sandwich and Fritos and drinking Dr. Pepper. That was pretty much the
 staple."
 Groce, who sang folk songs at coffeehouses, was eating junk food on the
 road when he conjured up the song in the mid 1970s. "I wrote it in my
 Volkswagen bus as I drove from West Virginia to Boston to do a job," he
 recalled. "I knew I wanted to write a song about junk food. So I got the
 idea to use the character of a junk food junkie who was kind of a Jekyll
 and Hyde. The words came fairly quickly. I actually stopped on the side of
 the road, took out the guitar, and made a tune for it so that by the time
 I got to Boston, it was pretty well written."
 Groce sang the song in his act on the coffeehouse circuit and received
 a strong positive reaction. "I thought of 'Junk Food Junkie' more as a
 satire than a novelty song. I performed it to poke fun at both the junk
 food culture and the health food culture. Everybody identified with it."
 His best reception came from the audience at a New York coffeehouse
 called The Focus, where he played regularly. "It turned into a health
 food restaurant. I saw the irony of going from the junk food culture of
 my childhood to the hip New York health consciousness where brown rice
 was the staple."
 His manager, Randy Nauert, tried to secure a record deal. But when
 there were no takers, Nauert decided to put it out himself on his own
 label, Peaceable Records. He sent several hundred copies to radio
 stations around the country. "The song sold itself," said Groce. "Disc
 jockeys had so much fun with it that it took on a life of its own."
 Dr. Demento featured it on his syndicated radio show, and in a weekly
 phone-in contest on Denver's KTLK, "Junk Food Junkie" soundly trounced
 all comers.  The song finally caught the attention of Warner Brothers,
 who cut a deal with Groce and re-released it on their label. Only then
 did it become a national hit.
 NOTEWORTHY NOTES
 o  The song was recorded live at McCabe's--a Los Angeles guitar shop that
 still stages acoustic concerts right in the store.
 o  Groce didn't even realize that his song was being recorded for a single.
 "I wasn't aware they were recording it because at the time I hadn't
 planned on releasing it as a single," he said.
 o  The audience's applause was sweetened for the record, "but not too
 much," Groce said.
 o  Groce's was the first song in history with lyrics that mentioned both
 19th century poet John Keats and Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Colonel
 Sanders.
 o  Michael Jackson once sand "Junk Food Junkie" on the Jackson Five's
 network TV show.
 PLATTER PATTER
 Warner Borhters Records feared there would be costly backlash from the
 junk food companies who were mentioned by name in the song.
 "There was a fear," said Groce. "I was in the publicity department at
 Warner Brothers and they were worried because they heard that local
 outlets of McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken had put some heat on the
 local stations to drop the song from their playlists.,
 "Although there were a few local franchises who were upset with the
 song and thought it was an insult, the home offices understood that every
 time their name was mentioned good things happen."
 After the song became a hit, Groce was a guest on a radio show along
 with the creator of Twinkies, who believed any kind of publicity was good
 publicity. "He said that every time Archie Bunker mentioned Twinkies on
 'All In The Family'--whether he was making fun of them or not--sales went
 up," said Groce.
 "We made a call to the P.R. office of Dr. Pepper and the guy there said
 they were in the company of some other good brand names [mentioned in the
 song] and they were happy about it."
 Actually Groce was a little disappointed that more companies weren't
 angry. "I was hoping someone would give us grief because that would have
 created a David and Goliath scenario that could have helped the sales of
 the record. But I think most of the companies were smart enough to
 realize that poking fun at their product was in good fun.
 "The Anti-Junk Food Council thought it was great because the song
 pointed out the dangers of junk food. I know a lot of people think junk
 food isn't nutritious--but I don't know anyone who doesn't agree that it
 tastes good."
 FOLLOW UPS AND DOWNS
 None of Groce's follow-up songs made it on the charts.
 Among them were: "The Bumper Sticker Song," "We Been Malled," and "Turn
 on the TV."
 ROCK ON
 Larry Groce, who lives in a 120-yeard-old farmhouse in West Virginia,
 has recorded seven albums of his own folk songs and ballads as well as
 hymns. He's also made nine albums of children's songs for Walt Disney
 Records, five of which have gone gold and three platinum.
 In 1986 he began hosting "Mountain Stage," a national radio show which
 features top recording artists from all styles of music. In 1991 Groce
 starred in a low-budget made-for-video feature called _Paradise Park_.
 "It's a humorous story of a trailer park in West Virginia," said Groce.
 "I play a teacher who lives there and everyone is an oddball but me