I don't think there are many but what about 'Living Next door to Alice' that turned into a sort of novelty song. http://youtu.be/iYAt22mWiWc

Surely Barbie Girl would qualify? If you listen to the lyrics, and take it in the context of Aqua's output in general, it is intended as a 'proper' song (for them, at least). But from the off everyone pretty much had it marked down as the daft Barbie novelty song (testified to in part by being such a massive hit).

Feel free to disagree, but I at least understand what the OP is getting at and I think others are being somewhat pedantic. They didn't mean that the songs have somehow literally metamorphosed from one type of song into another, just that over the years they have now come to be regarded as something of a 'novelty'/joke/not taken seriously etc in popular culture (ie hence the functions/disco point is an apt one).

I think that is what I meant all along

If a novelty song is a song that has become a bit of a joke and no one takes seriously, I'd like to nominate Sussudio and The Lady in Red as songs that have become essentially novelty songs that nobody I know would readily admit to actually liking but they sold nevertheless.

I'd like to suggest they can be both. I give you Chas and Dave.

because i think the op meant the 'karaokefication' of tracks as opposed to them becoming novelty...


... i thought right then!

Let's get ready to rumble is now treated as a novelty record by Ant and Dec but at the time was seen as a standard pop song.

I was watching the Malcolm in the middle scene the other day where Bryan Cranston dances to Sussudio

How about Jona Lewie's Stop the Cavalry. Intended originally as a protest song, because of one line that mentions Christmas, it now lives in the Slade/Shakin Stevens Christmas novelty song box only to be played at festive cheeseathons.

I'd class Crocodile Rock as a novelty song

Lieutenant Pigeon - Mouldy Old Dough?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO5GWJJP3FM
Bit of a guilty pleasure of mine

The 70s were full of novelty songs.

Irony often doesn't come across well in music as people just listen to the tune rather than the lyrics, Born in the USA is a good example.

good example!

I'd agree with this.
Jona himself has said that the 'christmas' line is just part of the song, yet because of it, the song's been placed squarely on the "Christmas Tunes" bandwagon.

Still, I guess it gets him royalties every year.

It was released in December, mentions christmas and has a brass band and bells on it, what did he expect?

Lazy Sunday Afternoon - Small Faces.

I agree with Sweet Caroline.
At most do's and night outs if it on most don't know the words, probably only just about know Sweet Caroline then the place shakes as everybody shouts BOM BOM BOM!!!
That's all the song is reduced to.

I'd also same similar with Living Next Door to Alice after the Roy Cubby Brown cover of it.

I kissed a girl by Katy Perry. If that was released in the 90s it would have been a 1 hit wonder. The power of social media and digital marketing eh?

I so hope the Teletubbies single - which happened in 1997 - wasn't meant as anything other than a novelty song.

I think that of all the songs mentioned here the only true novelty is Mouldy Old Dough. A true novelty record is not something "crap" but something "new". So Telstar would count as it used sounds that hadn't been heard before. O Superman would count as it was an avant garde work that somehow became a pop hit.

I remember the first time I ever heard that. I got up for school and put my radio on in the bedroom and it was making this weird noise over someone singing, I went to the bathroom and got ready, came back and it was still doing it. I told my dad my radio was bust and he needed to have a look at it.

The horror! I know, I just can't appreciate the art behind it.

Cotton eye joe?

Mysterious Girl

almost any single by Queen