Buzz’s Song About the World’s Smelliest Fruit

I had never heard of a fruit called the durian before today. I learned about it because of this NY Post story. It seems a flight from Sumatra to Jakarta (those are both actual places. I looked it up).

According to reports, passengers were so sickened by the smell of 2 tons of the world’s stinkiest fruit that they argued with the flight crew, some of them “almost coming to blows” with airline employees. The airline eventually agreed to remove the fruit and the plane eventually departed after a long delay.

How bad could a fruit smell? Bad enough that having a durian in your possession is prohibited in many hotels and, ironically perhaps, by most airlines throughout Asia. The airline insists that transporting durian is a common practice provided the fruit is wrapped and sealed properly.

What does it smell like? Wikipedia says, “The unusual flavor and odor of the fruit have prompted many people to express diverse and passionate views ranging from deep appreciation to intense disgust.”

This seems weird to me because with most of the fruits I’m familiar, the views range from “like” to “don’t like as much”. I know people who don’t like, say, bananas but I don’t know many people who have an “intense disgust” of bananas.

I got a little fascinated by this exotic fruit that some people consider a delicacy and other consider a bio-hazard. How could a fruit that many people describe as smelling like “vomit”, “sewage” and (I swear I’m not making this up) “surgical swabs” possibly taste like anything other than Lucifer’s bunghole?

Well I’ve written a song about the durian. It’s to the tune of a song from the nineties by little-know coffee house artist Phoebe Buffay. Here it is…