Arabian riff explained
"Arabian riff", also known as "The Streets of Cairo", "The Poor Little Country Maid", and "the snake charmer song", is a well-known melody, published in different forms in the 19th century. Alternate titles for children's songs using this melody include "The Girls in France" and "The Southern Part of France". The melody is often associated with the hoochie coochie belly dance.
History
There is a clear resemblance between the riff and the French song Colin prend sa hotte (published by Christophe Ballard in 1719), whose first five notes are identical. Colin prend sa hotte appears to derive from the lost Kradoudja, an Algerian folk song of the 17th century.[1]
A version of the riff was published in 1845 by Franz Hünten as Melodie Arabe. The melody was described as an "Arabian Song" in the La grande méthode complète de cornet à piston et de saxhorn par Arban, first published in the 1850s.
Sol Bloom, a showman (and later a U.S. congressman), published the song as the entertainment director of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. It included an attraction called "A Street in Cairo" produced by Gaston Akoun, which featured snake charmers, camel rides and a scandalous dancer known as Little Egypt. Songwriter James Thornton penned the words and music to his own version of this melody, "Streets Of Cairo or The Poor Little Country Maid". Copyrighted in 1895, it was made popular by his wife Lizzie Cox, who used the stage name Bonnie Thornton.[2] The oldest known recording of the song is from 1895, performed by Dan Quinn (Berliner Discs 171-Z).
The song was also recorded as "They Don't Wear Pants in the Southern Part of France" by John Bartles, the version sometimes played by radio host Dr. Demento.
Travadja La Moukère
In France, there is a song which pieds-noirs from Algeria brought back in the 1960s called "Travadja La Moukère" (from trabaja la mujer, which means "the woman works" in Spanish), which uses the same riff.
Partial lyrics:
In popular culture
Music
Since the piece is not copyrighted, it has been used as a basis for numerous songs, especially in the early 20th century:
- "Hoolah! Hoolah!"
- "Dance of the Midway" (in reference to the Midway Plaisance of the World's Columbian Exposition)
- "Coochi-Coochi Polka"
- "Danse Du Ventre"
- "In My Harem" by Irving Berlin
- "Kutchy Kutchy"
- ''Strut, Miss Lizzie'' by Creamer and Layton
- In Italy, the melody is often sung with the words "Te ne vai o no? Te ne vai sì o no?" ("Are you leaving or not? Are you leaving, yes or no?"). That short tune is used to invite an annoying person to move along, or at least to shut up.
- In 1934, during the Purim festivities in Tel Aviv, the song received Hebrew lyrics jokingly referring to the Book of Esther and its characters (Ahasaurus, Vashti, Haman and Esther) written by Natan Alterman, Israel's foremost lyricist of the time. It was performed by the "Matateh" troupe, under the name "נעמוד בתור / Na'amod Bator" ("we will stand in line").
1900s
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Cartoons
Video games
It appears on following computer and video games:
- Dark Tower (1981 electronic game, bazaar)
- Venture (1981)
- Lady Tut (1983)
- Oh Mummy (1984)
- Bombo (1986)
- Rick Dangerous (1989, Level 2 – Egypt)
- (1990, Katta's Tail Inn)
- Spot: The Video Game! (1990, when adding a piece to the right)
- Pyramid and Pyramid II (1990, first level)
- Lotus Turbo Challenge 1 (1991, desert level)
- Jill of the Jungle (1992)
- The Lost Vikings (1992, Level 3 – Egypt)
- Lemmings 2 (1993, Egyptian tribe)
- Zool 2 (1994, Tooting common level 3)
- (1999, Sung by Gex upon starting the level “Tut TV”)
- Rampage Through Time (2000, Egyptian time zone)
- JumpStart Explorers (2001, Egyptian area)
- Plants vs. Zombies (2009, “Grasswalk”)
- Kirby Mass Attack (2011, "Desert Scorcher" and "Lifted Upward")
- Rayman Origins (2011) Lums Notes Of Desert Of Dijridoos
- Kirby and the Rainbow Curse (2015, "More Dig and Dash" (taken directly from the anime) and "Evade and Dig and Dash")
- Cuphead (2017, Pyramid Peril)
- Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)
Television
Film
Children's culture
The tune is used for a 20th-century American children's song with – like many unpublished songs of child folk culture – countless variations as the song is passed from child to child over considerable lengths of time and geography, the one constant being that the versions are almost always smutty. One variation, for example, is:There's a place in FranceWhere the ladies wear no pantsBut the men don't care'cause they don't wear underwear.or a similar version:There's a place in FranceWhere the naked ladies danceThere's a hole in the wallWhere the men can see it all.
Another World War II-era variation is as follows:When your mind goes blankAnd you're dying for a wankAnd Hitler's playing snooker with your ballsIn the German nickThey hang you by your dickAnd put dirty pictures on the walls.
See also
External links
Notes and References
- Book: Fuld, James J.. The Book of World-famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk. 276. 2000. Courier Corporation. 978-0-486-41475-1. The opening five notes, including harmony and meter, are identical to the opening five notes of the song Colin Prend Sa Hotte in J.B. Christophe Ballard, Brunettes ou Petits Airs Tendres (Paris, 1719)....In J.B. Wekerlin, Échos du Temps Passé (Paris, 1857), ...the song is represented as a ‘Chanson à danser’ with the comment that the first phrase of the melody resembles almost note for note an Algerian or Arabic melody known as the Kradoutja, and that the melody has been popular in France since 1600. No printing of Kradoutja has been found.. 2020-02-03. 2024-03-22. https://web.archive.org/web/20240322011805/https://books.google.com/books?id=EVninY59ul0C. live.
- Web site: Streets Of Cairo or The Poor Little Country Maid. Thornton. James. 1895. JScholarship, Johns Hopkins University, Levy Sheet Music Collection. January 4, 2022. January 4, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220104234956/https://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/collection/144/023a. live.
- Book: Sinclair, James B.. A descriptive catalogue of the music of Charles Ives. 1999. Yale University Press. 0-300-07601-0. New Haven, Connecticut. 39905309. 2020-11-30. 2024-03-22. https://web.archive.org/web/20240322011818/https://search.worldcat.org/title/39905309. live.
