Wednesday, August 5, 2009

As they say in Louisiana, “How’s bayou?”


Today I woke up with this song running through my head:

Goodbye, Joe, me gotta go, me oh my oh,
Me gotta go pole the pirogue down the bayou;
My Yvonne, the sweetest one, me oh my oh,
Son of a gun, we’ll have good fun on the bayou.

Chorus:
Jambalaya, ’n a crawfish pie ’n a filet gumbo,
Cause tonight I’m gonna see my
ma chere amie-oh,
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-oh
Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou.



It was a popular song way back when in the fifties, and although the performer I remember hearing sing it was Jo Stafford, it was a Hank Williams song.

Jambalaya, for the uninitiated, is a Cajun dish, a version of paella. Perhaps you heard Justin Wilson (“How y’all are!”) talk about it on his PBS cooking show or saw him make it on more than one occasion (“I gar-on-tee!”). Perhaps not. Jambalaya is also, as it turns out, the name of a Canadian racehorse.

If you want to know more about Jambalaya, the song, click here.

If you want to know more about jambalaya, the dish, click here.

If you want to know more about Jambalaya, the racehorse, click here.

If you don’t want to know more about Jambalaya (the song) or jambalaya (the dish) or Jambalaya (the racehorse) or Jo Stafford or Hank Williams or Justin Wilson, you may now return to your colorless life relatively unscathed.

You were expecting maybe Maria Callas?

7 comments:

  1. I'll take Jo Stafford and Jambalaya over Maria Callas any time, and the dish holds much more interest for me than the racehorse.

    You do come up with some interesting subjects!

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  2. that second line goes....me gotta go, go to the folks on the bayou....

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  3. Pat - See below for the Hank Williams version.

    Putz - No, you are definitely wrong. Here's the voice of Hank Williams himself singing the song, illustrated by an inappropriate cartoon that ought to be called "Betty Boop Visits Her Moonshiner Relatives In West Virginia" because no bayou is anywhere in sight.

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  4. The exact lyrics (and even who exactly wrote the song) seem to be open to discussion depending on which site you use but here in the UK we know it primarily by The Carpenters who released a MOR version here back in the 70's.

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  5. ya like i said. silverback,,,,,,,in happy birthday song also,,, it is happy b day to you...to you....hope you have a happy day and do not break your leg

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  6. I also know this song - from a long time ago. But recently I've been listening to some music related, but a bit more recent - the soundtrack to "The Big Easy".

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  7. Been singing the song as I read!

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<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

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