SONG OF THE DAY
“Iko Iko” as performed by The Dixie Cups (“Iko Iko” / “I’m Gonna Get You Yet” [single], Red Bird Records, 1965). Written by James “Sugar Boy” Crawford.
WHY TODAY?
I had this song stuck in my head and was singing it around the house. Any normal day. But Todd thought I was making up some mumbo jumbo lyrics, and challenged me on it, and, as it turns out, I was actually almost perfectly accurate on the lyrics, at least the first to verses. With all that time spent on the song, I figured it might as well be today’s song, though, to be honest, it’s been in my head a bit too long today.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
- The Dixie Cups are an American pop music girl group of the 1960s originally from New Orleans.
- They are best known for their 1964 million selling disc, “Chapel of Love”.
- In April 2007, The Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame honored The Dixie Cups for their contributions to Louisiana music by inducting them into The Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame.
- “Iko Iko” is a much-covered New Orleans song that tells of a parade collision between two “tribes” of Mardi Gras Indians. The story tells of a “spy boy” or “spy dog” i.e. a lookout for one band of Indians encountering the “flag boy” or guidon carrier for another band. He threatens to set the flag on fire.
- The song, under the original title “Jock-A-Mo”, was written in 1953 by James “Sugar Boy” Crawford in New Orleans.
- Crawford set phrases chanted by Mardi Gras Indians to music for the song. Crawford himself states that he has no idea what the words mean, and that he originally sang the phrase “Chock-a-mo,” but the title was misheard by Chess & Checkers Records President Lloyd Price, who misspelled it as “Jock-a-mo” for the record’s release.
- “Jock-a-mo” was the original version of the song “Iko Iko” recorded by The Dixie Cups in 1965. Their version came about by accident. They were in a New York City studio for a recording session when they began an impromptu version of “Iko Iko,” accompanied only by drumsticks on studio ashtrays. Said Dixie Cup member Barbara Hawkins: “We were just clowning around with it during a session using drumsticks on ashtrays. We didn’t realize that Jerry and Mike had the tapes running”. Session producers Leiber and Stoller added bass and drums and released it.
- The Dixie Cups, who had learnt “Iko, Iko” from hearing their grandmother sing it, also knew little about the origin of the song and so the original authorship credit went to the members, Barbara Ann Hawkins, her sister Rosa Lee Hawkins, and their cousin Joan Marie Johnson.
- After the Dixie Cups version of the “Iko Iko” was released in 1965, The Dixie Cups and their record label, Redbird Records, were sued by James Crawford, who claimed that “Iko Iko” was the same as his composition “Jock-a-mo”. Although The Dixie Cups denied that the two compositions were similar, the lawsuit resulted in a settlement in 1967 with Crawford making no claim to authorship or ownership of “Iko Iko”, but being credited 25% for public performances, such as on radio, of “Iko Iko” in the United States. Even though a back-to-back listening of the two recordings clearly demonstrates that “Iko Iko” was practically the same song as Crawford’s “Jock-a-mo”, Crawford’s rationale for the settlement was motivated by years of legal battles with no royalties. In the end, he stated, “I don’t even know if I really am getting my just dues. I just figure 50 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing.”
- In the 1990s, The Dixie Cups became aware that another group of people were claiming authorship of “Iko Iko”. Their ex-manager Joe Jones and his family filed a copyright registration in 1991, alleging that they wrote the song in 1963. Joe Jones successfully licensed “Iko Iko” outside of North America, and it was used as the soundtrack of Mission Impossible 2 in 2000. The Dixie Cups filed a lawsuit against Joe Jones. The trial took place in New Orleans and The Dixie Cups were represented by well known music attorney Oren Warshavsky. The jury returned a unanimous verdict on March 6, 2002, affirming that The Dixie Cups were the only writers of “Iko Iko” and granting them more money than they were seeking.
- The song is regularly performed by artists from New Orleans such as the Neville Brothers (who have recorded it in a medley with the melodically-related Mardi Gras song “Brother John” as “Brother John/Iko Iko”), Larry Williams, Dr. John, The Radiators, Willy DeVille, Buckwheat Zydeco and Zachary Richard, and can often be heard on the streets and in the bars of New Orleans, especially during Mardi Gras.
- It has also been covered by Cyndi Lauper, the Grateful Dead (who made Iko Iko a constant staple in their live shows from 1977 onward), Cowboy Mouth, Warren Zevon, Long John Baldry, Dave Matthews & Friends, The Ordinary Boys, Glass Candy, and Sharon, Lois & Bram among others. Amy Holland covered the song on the soundtrack of the film K-9, Aaron Carter covered the song for The Little Vampire soundtrack, and The Belle Stars’ cover was featured in the films Rain Man and The Hangover. A later version by Zap Mama, with rewritten lyrics, was featured in the opening sequences of the film Mission: Impossible II.
- Rolf Harris in 1965 recorded a cover version with slightly altered words, removing references to “flag boys” and other regionally specific lyrics, although much of the creole patois remained as a sort of nonsense scat. This version made the song popular in England and Australia in the 1960s.
- James “Sugar Boy” Crawford, gave a 2002 interview with “OffBeat Magazine” discussing the song’s meaning:
- Interviewer: How did you construct ‘Jock-A-Mo?’
- Crawford: It came from two Indian chants that I put music to. “Iko Iko†was like a victory chant that the Indians would shout. “Jock-A-Mo†was a chant that was called when the Indians went into battle. I just put them together and made a song out of them. Really it was just like “Lawdy Miss Clawdy”. That was a phrase everybody in New Orleans used. Lloyd Price just added music to it and it became a hit. I was just trying to write a catchy song.…
- Interviewer: Listeners wonder what ‘Jock-A-Mo’ means. Some music scholars say it translates in Mardi Gras Indian lingo as ‘Kiss my ass,’ and I’ve read where some think ‘Jock-A-Mo’ was a court jester. What does it mean?
- Crawford: I really don’t know. (laughs)
- Following is the “Iko Iko” story, as told by Dr. John in the liner notes to his 1972 album, Dr. John’s Gumbo, in which he covers New Orleans R&B classics:
- “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 Records, 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.”
VIDEO OF THE DAY