Quezi

My Mate Marmite (photo by dullhunk - CC-BY)

Marmite is a sticky dark brown British yeast-based salty spread.

Unlike its Australian rival Vegemite, which has inspired some professional love/hate Vegemite songs, the Marmite songs appear to be amateur productions—although some of them do have rather poignant or even disturbing lyrics.

UK YouTuber Sheepstar15 sings lovingly about the “small brown jar” that helps her to rise in the morning:

When I’m standing waiting for the kettle
And wishing I could run back to my bed
The only thing to raise me from my coma
Is to spread some Marmite thinly on my bread

Logsterman23 performs an amateurish parody of “Mamma Mia”:

Marmite Mia, here I go again
Marmite, how can I resist you?
Marmite Mia, let me show again
Just how much I love you.

“A Marmite Song”, performed by Jamside Up, is a cheesy homage:

Here is a song you’ll either love or you’ll hate
It’s mainly about a thing that I call “My mate”
I spread it on bread, on crackers, on toast
Marmite’s the thing that I think I love the most

Marmite, my yeasty friend
My love for you will never end

More disturbing, but strangely brilliant, is Huw Olesker’s music video entitled Marmite. This teenager’s performance of his song won him a £1000 prize at “Portsmouth’s Got Talent”. This may say as much about Portsmouth as it does about Marmite…

Sometimes men like women,
Sometimes men like men,
Sometimes men like women
Who turn out to be men.

I’m not here to judge,
But sometimes people hold a grudge
When I tell them I’m
Physically attracted to Marmite

Finally there’s “Golden Brown”, a 1981 song by the Stranglers with a funky 3/4 – 4/4 time signature. Its haunting yet compelling lyrics were always controversial, with some people suspecting that they were drug references. Singer Hugh Cornwell cheerfully confirmed this, but said that the song “works on two levels. It’s about heroin, and also about a girl”. Their drummer, Jet Black, quipped that the song was also about Marmite, and indeed it can work on that level too:

Golden brown, texture like sun,
Lays me down, with my mind she runs
Throughout the night no need to fight
Never a frown with golden brown

Hmm. Well, it works as well as any of the other Marmite songs.

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