Iko, Iko
We've got a plan, more or less -- hiring the movers to come fetch our furniture in 2 and a half weeks. So, now boxes and decisions. We're tossing LOTS -- no sense in moving things over to Bear's Retreat if we don't really love or need them. We've decided, as a family, to finally really listen to Ruskin and Morris.*
We were so ready to come home, though, that instead of taking a civilized two days to drive back from South Carolina, we took the whole 12 hours in one swoop. One of those fell swoops. Luckily, we have the iPod, which, as all of you who own one know, can entertain you for HOURS. The "traveling" playlist alone, on mine, will get us all the way from Pittsburgh to Columbia.
On the way home, we listened to it for a while, but the final hour or so was taken up by the very special playlist I have entitled "Iko, Iko," as it is all Iko, Iko, all the time.
I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was to discover just how many versions of Iko, Iko there are out there. They'd get you all the way from Pittsburgh to Columbia, if you listened to them all. My collection is more modest, at this point, though I've met me; eventually they'll all show up.
As a family, we are in favor of Iko, Iko. We like the fact that the words we can't understand turn out to be untranslatable anyway, so the fact that we don't understand them is irrelevant. We like the various layers of history to the song. We like the well known verses, which morph in various directions, depending on who's singing them (Sitting by the fire! Sitting on the bayou! My flag boy! Your spy boy!). We like the extemporaneous verses, which make it clear the song could go on forever, really. We like the beat. We find it hilarious that according to the online lyrics sites, the copyright for apparently interchangeable lyrics belongs to everybody and his grandma, all of whom are sitting by the fire. We like the fact that any singer in the whole world feels perfectly entitled to record the song, no matter how tenuous his or her connection to Mardi Gras. We also like that we get to hear the song without actually going to Mardi Gras, for though we adore New Orleans and are in favor of it, too, and suspect that if we had relatives there we'd love it as much as Charleston, we don't want to go there during Mardi Gras, and didn't even when we were less well behaved than we are now, although we believe with all our hearts in some sort of past Mardi Gras Paradise we would have happily attended, maybe in about 1941.
The Dixie Cups got the song onto the charts in 1965, though it had first been recorded in the 40's, and dates from before that, we don't know when. And it's going strong. Eventually our little iPod may move on out into the larger world of Mardi Gras music, of which Iko Iko is only a small part -- but for now, it's collecting spy boys on the bayou. You have to start someplace.
*********************
*Have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
We were so ready to come home, though, that instead of taking a civilized two days to drive back from South Carolina, we took the whole 12 hours in one swoop. One of those fell swoops. Luckily, we have the iPod, which, as all of you who own one know, can entertain you for HOURS. The "traveling" playlist alone, on mine, will get us all the way from Pittsburgh to Columbia.
On the way home, we listened to it for a while, but the final hour or so was taken up by the very special playlist I have entitled "Iko, Iko," as it is all Iko, Iko, all the time.
I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was to discover just how many versions of Iko, Iko there are out there. They'd get you all the way from Pittsburgh to Columbia, if you listened to them all. My collection is more modest, at this point, though I've met me; eventually they'll all show up.
As a family, we are in favor of Iko, Iko. We like the fact that the words we can't understand turn out to be untranslatable anyway, so the fact that we don't understand them is irrelevant. We like the various layers of history to the song. We like the well known verses, which morph in various directions, depending on who's singing them (Sitting by the fire! Sitting on the bayou! My flag boy! Your spy boy!). We like the extemporaneous verses, which make it clear the song could go on forever, really. We like the beat. We find it hilarious that according to the online lyrics sites, the copyright for apparently interchangeable lyrics belongs to everybody and his grandma, all of whom are sitting by the fire. We like the fact that any singer in the whole world feels perfectly entitled to record the song, no matter how tenuous his or her connection to Mardi Gras. We also like that we get to hear the song without actually going to Mardi Gras, for though we adore New Orleans and are in favor of it, too, and suspect that if we had relatives there we'd love it as much as Charleston, we don't want to go there during Mardi Gras, and didn't even when we were less well behaved than we are now, although we believe with all our hearts in some sort of past Mardi Gras Paradise we would have happily attended, maybe in about 1941.
The Dixie Cups got the song onto the charts in 1965, though it had first been recorded in the 40's, and dates from before that, we don't know when. And it's going strong. Eventually our little iPod may move on out into the larger world of Mardi Gras music, of which Iko Iko is only a small part -- but for now, it's collecting spy boys on the bayou. You have to start someplace.
*********************
*Have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
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