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?