this song is old but i first heard it as the opening tune to Tom Cruise’s RAIN MAN.
there is a info on it here
http://www.cajunfrenchmusic.org/forum/messages/548.htm
but i couldn’t find translations to the lyrics.
could someone please help?
my grandma and your grandma
sittin’ by the fire
my grandma said to your grandma
i’m gonna set your flag on fire
talkin’ 'bout hey now! hey now!
iko iko unday
jockamo feeno ai nané
jockamo fee nané
Hey now!
There are any number of versions of this song, and any number of verses.
My grandma and your grandma
Sitting by the fire
My grandma said to your grandma
Let’s make some jambalaya
My little boy and your little boy
Playin’ catch with a tomato
Your boy missed mine’s very best throw
Made ketchup on a gator
Those are from Buckwheat Zydeco’s Choo Choo Boogaloo CD, but there are millions more. I make up my own all the time.
Anyhow, I know that’s not the info you were looking for, but I thought I’d chime in.
P.S. Is there a Neville Brothers site anywhere? Thir liner notes tend to be pretty good. Maybe they have an informative site.
This song has been part of the soundtrack of more movies than I can count. There was a time you couldn’t go to the movies at all without hearing this song. Does anyone have a list of all the movies that had “Iko Iko” in them?
No, but I once read an article which asserted that the 2 most common songs in movies were George Thorogood’s Bad to the Bone and James Brown’s I Feel Good. George beat out James by a slim margin for the title of Soundtrack King.
ricksummon asks:
> Does anyone have a list of all the movies that had “Iko
> Iko” in them?
Well, a soundtrack search on the Internet Movie Database gives the following three movies:
Big Easy, The (1987)
K-9 (1989)
Rain Man (1988)
Let’s not forget the stellar “Satisfaction” with Juystine Bateman, Julai Roberts and Liam Neeson.
According to this, the melody was written by “Jockomo” James Crawford in 1950.
http://ingeb.org/songs/mygrandm.html
New Orleans musical history can have its murky side. A lotta things that sound like they must have been played by the funeral brass bands in the 1890s turn out to have been composed by guys like Professor Longhair in the '50s. And things that sound like they must have been composed by Professor Longhair turn out to have been the work of Hank Williams Sr…like “Jambalaya.”
The 2-minute-plus a capella version of “Iko Iko” by The Dixie Cups is my personal favorite recording of this tune.
The Grateful Dead did this tune too…except they spelled it ‘Aiko Aiko’. Which spelling is correct?
Now, if we could just figure out how that relates to the number of movies that have either “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves or James Horner’s score from the climax of Aliens in their trailers, we could . . . why, we could rule the world!
And every single trailer to a horror movie must use Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana (or at least the loud “O Fotuna” sections).
According to this site
http://www3.clearlight.com/~acsa/intro.htm
“Aiko Aiko” is used only by Deadheads when inscribing bootleg tapes.
The single official Dead recording, on Dick’s Picks Number 9, has it spelled “Iko Iko.” Likewise the Dixie Cups version, which appears on The Music Never Stooped: the Roots of the Grateful Dead, which is the album of original versions of tunes the Dead covered, and which is utterly fantastic and anyone with any interest in American roots music should go out and buy it right now.
Uh, that would be The Music Never Stopped. Although it never stooped, either.
There’s still no answer to the translation question …
This is very very sketchy, but I really think i recall a late night radio show that was talking about lyrics, and someone was talking about this song. I don’t remember the rest, but they said that the phrase “Jockomo fee nane” was a phrase somewhere in between “He can do as he likes, I don’t care” and “He can go f*** himself”.
Sorry I don’t know for sure; I also don’t know if that came from just what the composer thought it should mean or if the words were known.
Also used at the start of Mission Impossible 2, thus completing the Tom Cruise circle.
I always thought the “jocamo fi na ne” part sounded like “choking on feenamint”
Another bit of music trivia for you - Cyndi Lauper covered the tune on her second album! And no, I’m not ashamed to admit that I have that album.
Well, it’s gotta mean something! The Neville Brothers are wont to say it alot, like in the opening to their song Brother John:
Jockamo fee na ay
Jockame fee ne ay
Well if you don’t mind what the big chief say
Then it’s jockamo fee na ay
Or something like that. I know it makes no sense.
Where’s Cajun Man when you need him?
Bob Weir(of the Grateful Dead)was asked this question in an interview and replied"kiss my ass".
If you don’t like what the big chief say’s,jockamo fe na ne.
The part about “setting your flag on fire…”
Back in the days when Mardi Gras was a REAL party and not a tourist attraction, the various Krewes participating in the parade would carry their own flags, as if they were independent sovereign states.
If you could burn another Krewe’s flag, it was considered the ultimate diss.
pldennison writes:
> Now, if we could just figure out how that relates to the
> number of movies that have either “Walking on Sunshine”
> by Katrina and the Waves or James Horner’s score from the
> climax of Aliens in their trailers, we could . . . why,
> we could rule the world!
The Internet Movie Database lists the following movies as containing “Walking on Sunshine”. This list isn’t complete though. It doesn’t give any soundtrack information about Aliens, let alone what other movies used that score. Furthermore, many trailers use different music from the movie, since they are often made before the scoring of the film is complete:
American Psycho (2000)
Bean (1997)
Dolly Parton: Treasures (1996) (TV)
High Fidelity (2000)
Look Who’s Talking (1989)
Secret of My Succe$s, The (1987)