''Iko Iko'' lyrics

[Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker]

This question came up some time back, but I’ve had trouble finding the thread about some of the incomprehensible words in this song (like “jockamo fee nah nay”) It could have disappeared in the Great Message Board Meltdown of 2002.

Anyone???

[donkeyoatey]

Iko Iko lyrics

[donkeyoatey]

And the GQ.

[astro]

http://www.cyndilauper.com/song_det.php?shname=ii

Notes
Following is the “Iko Iko” story, as told by Dr. John in the liner notes to his 1972 album, “Gumbo,” in which he covers New Orleans R&B classics. Cyndi was probably a huge fan of this album when it came out.
“The song was written and recorded back in the early 1950s by a New Orleans singer named James Crawford who worked under the name of Sugar Boy & the Cane Cutters. It was recorded in the 1960s by the Dixie Cups for Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller’s Red Bird label, but the format we’re following here is Sugar Boy’s original. Also in the group were Professor Longhair on piano, Jake Myles, Big Boy Myles, Irv Bannister on guitar, and Eugene ‘Bones’ Jones on drums. The group was also known as the Chipaka Shaweez. The song was originally called ‘Jockamo,’ and it has a lot of Creole patois in it. Jockamo means ‘jester’ in the old myth. It is Mardi Gras music, and the Shaweez was one of many Mardi Gras groups who dressed up in far out Indian costumes and came on as Indian tribes. The tribes used to hang out on Claiborne Avenue and used to get juiced up there getting ready to perform and ‘second line’ in their own special style during Mardi Gras. That’s dead and gone because there’s a freeway where those grounds used to be. The tribes were like social clubs who lived all year for Mardi Gras, getting their costumes together. Many of them were musicians, gamblers, hustlers and pimps.”

(This comes from David Cederstrom)

http://www.wbgo.org/library/interviews/drjohn.html

MB: I’ve never known what the song; “Iko Iko” is all about.

DJ: Well, it’s some of that Mardi Gras Indian music. It doesn’t translate too good in English. It kind of means – “If you don’t get the Hell out of the way, the Indians are going to walk all over you. This is the Indian’s day.”
.

[Rhythmdvl]

Hey now~