In Cab Calloway’s Minnie the Moocher: She fell in love with a bloke named Smokie
She loved him, though he was cokie
What is “cokie”? I’ve heard that at the time light-skinned blacks were higher in the social hierarchy than dark-skinned blacks. For the sake of this argument, let’s assume Minnie was “high yellow”. Is the song saying that she loved Smokie even though he was as black as coke (coal), and much darker than she?
Cocaine was also popular at the time. Perhaps “cokie” meant that Smokie was a cocaine addict, but Minnie loved him anyway?
Or was the choice of “cokie” an intentional double-entendre?
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
The first scenario outlined above is a fine example of what we chefs call “making too much soup from one oyster.” It’s a drug reference, pure and simple. The song continues,
…He took her down to Chinatown
And showed her how to kick the gong around.
“kicking the gong” is thirties-era slang for doing opium; Smokey took this girl and got her hooked.
Don’t sweat not getting the drug reference, the fact that you listen to truly cool music more than makes up for it. Blatant drug references were hip in the 30’s, even Cole Porter used them.
Calloway’s Law:
For each “Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-hi” there must be a “Ho-de-ho-de-ho-de-ho” of equal magnitude.
According to a harmonica book I’ve got, Minnie the Moocher was based on an earlier song called Willy the Weeper. I think the Willy version made it clearer that it was about a drug induced hallucination.