Just what is a hoochie-coocher anyway?
something slightly risque I hope…
Hoochie coo was a tag hung on suggestive dances that the early bump and grinders,eg,Little Egypt,did.
In Cab Calloway’s world, probably just what today may be termed as a party/club girl.
He was an original jive talker.
“She was the roughest, toughest frill.
But Minnie had a heart as big as a whale.”
If Cab were recording today, Minnie would probably be a bitch or a ho.
Tragic.
Folks here’s the story 'bout Minnie the Moocher
She was a red hot hoochie coocher
(she was a hip-flinger in a black-and tan, a nightclub dancer)
She was the roughest, toughest frail
But Minnie had a heart a big as a whale
(“frail” is slang for “woman”)
She messed around with a bloke named Smokey
She loved him, though he was coke-y
(Minnie fell for a cocaine addict, as your gentle correspondent herself has been known to do)
He took her down to Chinatown
And he showed her how to kick the gong around
(Smokey took her to the hop-joints in Chinatown and introduced her to opium)
That was way cool, Eve.
Could you do the last two verses?
Haj
They’re pretty self-explanatory opium dreams . . . Besides, I might get in dutch for quoting the whole song.
Yeah, Eve, explicate the “hi dee hi dee hi dee ho” part next.
hi dee
(Cab’s vocalist, Dee Montaine, walked by while he was recording)
hi dee
(Guess she didn’t hear me, I’ll try again)
hi dee
(What the hell is up with that bitch, is she deaf?)
ho
(Ho’!)
Yeah. A Heidi Heidi Ho.
Forgive me.
Ho, ho, ho!
[The 1920s laugh-ray version of lol.]
We could do that for any of Cab Calloway’s songs. He wasn’t known as the “hi di ho man” for nothing.
Is Minnie the Moocher in the public domain yet? I know that the film Hi Di Ho is, hallelujah.
Anyway, I have the full version posted up at House of Mudd and will provide a link if it’s kosher.
I’ve always been mildly surprised that even the truncated version of Minnie the Moocher was as widely accepted as it was by the relatively un-hep. (What with the Betty Boop cartoon and all.)
The full version has a bit of a downer ending:
Cab Calloway has a few other songs that feature Minnie and Smokey, too:
Kickin’ the Gong Around is the heart-warming sequel in which a regret-filled, junk-sick Smokey vainly tries to find Minnie in their old haunts:
It has an ambivalently happy ending of sorts: “As he departed/the curtains parted/and there stood Minnie/Kickin’ the gong around.” Awwww…
And of course there’s the more up-beat Minnie the Moocher’s Wedding Day–
…Mudd, who cannot be stopped from singing the entire Cab Calloway Canon when he consumes a single drop over two ounces of spirits.
Again, I’d like to point out that references to “junk” in the above lyrics were veiled and obscure to contemporary (non-jive-talking) listeners. “Junk” just made its way into the common vocabulary, and most people forget its original coded connection. Anything remotely Chinese signified opiates, (eg; “gong,” “fan,” etc.) We tend to associate “junk” with trash, but that association wasn’t there at the beginning of the twentieth century. From a jive perspective, it’s strictly a chinese boat.
OK, who came first–Minnie the Moocher (the hoochie-coocher) or Willie the Weeper (the chimney sweeper)?
I’d bet my eye teeth that Willie came first. It was already recorded (with songwriting credit given as “traditional”) in 1925.
I have a Boswell Sisters cover of Minnie the Moocher’s Wedding Day, in which they name Willie the Weeper as one of the invited guests – never heard a C.C. recording that featured that line. My interpretation of this has been that that was the Bozziesay of nodding in the direction of Minnie’s roots. (Not that I’ve looked any further than my own gut for that.)
Eve, this wins my vote for the funniest, most clever thing I’ve seen on this message board this whole year.
OK! Next Vancouver dopefest, Larry’s drinks are on me!
Thank you, dear–I take pride that the worse my life gets, the zingier my wisecracks.
Anyone know if Lyda Roberti ever recorded Minnie? I believe she introduced the song on B’way, amd I would kill to her hear Polish-accented take on it.
I haven’t heard a Roberti version, but Danny Elfman (I believe it’s him singing) does a fantastic version as the devil in Forbidden Zone.
The above references to “junk” also help illuminate why addicts are called junkies.
Elfman’s version is so cool. I stole the only copy of FB I ever found from a video store around 1988. I lost it due to the kharma.