What is said at the start of Pretty Fly for a White Guy?

As established in this question, "Rock of Ages" by Def Leppard starts with

"Gunter, Glieben, Glauchen, Globen"

because of an in-joke by the band and their producer, Mutt Lange.

But why does "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" by The Offspring start with that same line? It even seems to be a sample.

• "Rock of Ages" – Def Leppard
• "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" – The Offspring

Please note that I'm looking for sourced answers, not just opinion. It's obviously a reference to Def Leppard, but why? Are they big fans, or was it a suggestion by an engineer that they liked enough to use?

asked Aug 14, 2015 at 20:32

SQBSQB

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2

From Rocky Mountain News - November 29, 1998:

The group's guitarist, Noodles, says not to read too much into the Def Leppard sample. It was just one of the many nonsensical touches with which he and frontman Dexter Holland loaded the song.

"Dexter wanted to see how far he could take that riff and keep it funky and load it with hooks -- like the girls' voices and the 'uno, dos, tres ... ' in the chorus and all that stuff," said Noodles (a k a Kevin Wasserman) "He wanted to see how hooky and kooky he could make it."

As to the Def Leppard sample, "Dexter just put that on there. We hit them up with the idea and we reached an amicable agreement, financially, for the sample. I knew nothing about Def Leppard until I saw a VH1 Legends show on them."

Found it in this link.

SQB

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answered Mar 22, 2020 at 12:21

The Offspring used it to replace the 1,2,3,4 count that some bands (i.e. The Ramones) would start their songs off to. Of course, a few seconds after the opening, they count to 6 in Spanish....go figure!

Def Leppard actually used this beginning for Rock of Ages for the same reason, it was just made up jibberish by their producer, Mutt Lange as you mentioned in your question.

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=3831

answered Aug 15, 2015 at 10:52

1

I believe they said it as a reference to Def Leppard's song. A funny little fact that supports this is that the singer or anyone in the band didn't say it, it was actually sampled directly from Rock Of Ages!

answered Aug 15, 2015 at 12:05

DJ AftershockDJ Aftershock

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“It’s meaningless drivel, basically,” Def Leppard lead singer Joe Elliott told me, after we discussed the effectiveness of cabbage-soup diets. The drivel in question–which Elliott spells “Gunter gleben glousen globen”–was uttered by the producer of their Pyromania record, Mutt Lange (later to be Shania Twain’s husband). The band was going stir crazy in the studio and badly needed some comic relief (not realizing that future albums with Lange would take years instead of months). So on a skeletal version of the “Rock of Ages” track, when Lange was counting off mid-song to indicate where guitar fills should come in, he started off with the tradional “1, 2, 3, 4,” progressed to rhythmically listing Indian foods such as papadum, and ended up making up his own quasi-Teutonic language. “We thought it was so funny, we lifted it from the middle of the song,” Elliott said. (The Offspring agreed in 1998, borrowing it for the intro of “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy).”) “We were actually accosted by a German once who said it meant ‘running through the forest, silently’,” Elliott reported. “It doesn’t–but auf wiedersehen, mate!”

(Excerpted from the 2006 book Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton’s Little John?: Music’s Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed, published by Three Rivers Press, written by Gavin Edwards.)

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