This evening, the Dog is sharing a delightful bit of lunacy from a veteran comedy songwriting team.
Lou (for Louise) Berryman (nee Noffke) and Peter Berryman met in high school and were sweethearts in college. Since they began recording together, they have released eighteen albums and written over two hundred songs. Generally, Lou composes the music and Peter is responsible for the lyrics. When they perform, Lou plays the accordion and Peter plays the 12-string guitar. Perhaps their most famous piece is one you may have heard that contains the chorus: “We sit down to have a chat./ It’s F-word this and F-word that./ I can’t control how you young people talk to one another./ But I don’t want to hear you use that F-word with your mother.”
This year, the Berrymans announced that after decades of touring the country together, they are retiring from doing so. Who can blame them? They are both turning seventy.
One interesting aspect of their relationship is that while Lou and Peter married in 1967,
they divorced in 1980, the same year they released their first LP. Indeed, while pursuing a professional life together. they have each been married for many years to other people. The situation is not unique. Betty Comden and Adoph Green, who were said to have the longest running creative partnership in the history of the American theater, also had other spouses (although, unlike the Berrymans, they had not previously married and divorced one another).