Wow. That's an interesting one, Dave. I don't know if that's the actual explanation, but it sure sounds better than any of the stuff I've come up with.

I thought it was about abortion. In the Joan Baez songbook that I have, the introduction says:

"This song is typical of the exciting "Highlife" music heard in the cafes of Ghana. It shows the influence of American jazz and Latin American rhythms on West African native musics, indicating a direction in musical diffusion which ethnomusicologists are first beginning to notice after years of studying the movement in the reverse direction, from Africa to America. Its poetry, too, is worthy of notice for it exhibits a fluidity of words and metaphors based on ordiinary speech patterns which strike home directly -- if somewhat savagely."

Which is interesting, but not much helpful in actually understanding the imagery.

ww