Origins: Danger Waters - story behind the song?

Subject: RE: Help: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: GUEST,kikinw
Date: 19 Apr 12 - 12:51 AM

I thought that "have me labor" on the sofa meant a prostitute having sex.

Subject: RE: Help: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: Genie
Date: 19 Apr 12 - 02:03 AM

I thought that too. Either that, or it referred to childbirth.

Subject: RE: Help: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: GUEST,Jimbo
Date: 27 Dec 13 - 05:19 PM

I too was fascinated by the lyrics. Did some digging on Google etc following up some of the pointers given in earlier posts and found that Joan Baez based her song on a song by Jacob A. Browne And The Greenwood Singers, a Liberian based group that did Cafe Music. Long and interesting story behind the credits on the song, if you do a search for Guthrie Alberts (a descendant of the Arthur S Alberts credited as a writer of Danger Waters) you'll see his website which explains a bit more about the history (Arthur Alberts being an American stationed in West Africa during World War II who then returned in 1949 to record some of the local music including "Hold Me Tight" (which is a precursor to Danger Waters)). He has rereleased Hold Me Tight and although I didnt purchase the track I was able to listen to a couple of 30s samples and scribbled down the following lyrics:
me go buy you slippers
me go buy you shimmy
and i tell you say
make yo mommy no know (repeated)
and i tell her say
make me go no home
and we lay on sofa make her get me labor
and the other wine (repeated)
"tortoise boy no mon ami..." (repeated)

Seems to me that the lyrics here (which are only part of the song) seem to talk about a man who buys gifts for a girl that he's having a secret relationship with. Interestingly here the phrase seems to be "make her get me labor" which sounds more like sex than childbirth. Also the phrases: "me go buy you slippers" and "me go buy you shimmy" have the same sound to them as Danger Waters' "give me back me shilling". Also it seems the story is being told from the male point of view here rather than the female point of view in Danger Waters.

I guess this shows that the lyrics were fluid and evolved over time. If I do download the full "Hold Me Tight" track, I will post up what I learn from the rest of the lyrics!

Subject: RE: Help: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: GUEST,Jimbo
Date: 27 Dec 13 - 05:30 PM

Was too curious so ended up buying the track from cdbaby

Here are more complete lyrics (many of the lines are repeated 4 or 5 times after each other). Also I'm not sure of the accuracy and there was one word I couldn't understand.

hold me tight
danger water coming baby
hold me tight

and he holler why
tortoise boy non mon ami
me go by you slippers
me go buy you shimmy
and i tell you say
make yo mommy no know
and i tell her say
make me go no home
and we lay on sofa make her get me labor
and the other wine*4
"tortoise boy no mon ami..."

give me back my shilling
you can still [?] make it
give me back my shilling

and i gie em one
and i gie em two
way I gie em three time
he holler lord have mercy (and) (repeat)
tortoise boy non mon ami

hold me tight
danger water coming baby
hold me tight

Subject: RE: Help: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jan 16 - 08:24 PM

Easy as heck: The tortoise boy is a strange freak in this woman's village, having a humped back that makes it look like he has a shell, or he's a guy who catches and sells tortoise meat, to make his living. Either way, this woman gets the hots for him. He's good in bed, giving her three orgasms, to the point where she hollers, "Lordy have mercy!" Unfortunately, she gets pregnant and has to give birth, in private, aided only by her shelled lover. She worries that her mother will find out. Since the tortoise boy is her lover, and the father of her child, she gives him a few shillings to help him out. He then rejects her, no longer being her friend, as she sings, and leaves her behind, wanting her money back. No mystery, at all, although y'all seem to like to take every little line apart so have at it, if it gets you off.

Subject: RE: Help: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jan 16 - 08:27 PM

As far as the "Danger Waters" bit, she is scared by the events in her life, and wants her lover to hold her tight, although he eventually rejects her.

Subject: RE: Help: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: GUEST,Kiilet
Date: 20 May 16 - 05:25 AM

Jus kill em or let them ask for mercy

Subject: RE: Help: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jun 16 - 01:27 PM

MorwenEdhelwen1
I think you are right, and the title is referring to the 'waters' coming out before birth. They mean the mother might soon die.

Subject: RE: Help: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Feb 17 - 07:14 PM

Ok, I just found this interesting thread in trying to learn the meaning of the words. That last comment, "They mean the mother might soon die" isn't true of amniotic fluid coming out. Water "breaking" is a normal part of the birth process. So...I like the theory that it could be a hump backed boy but it makes more sense to me that it's someone who sells Tortoise meat or shells.

The other idea I wanted to suggest is that "Make me mamma no know" could be about the original sex that led to the birth...and maybe indeed it isn't multiple births, but multiple occasions of forced sex...maybe just consensual sex, even...

Subject: RE: Help: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: Tuvya
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 04:57 PM

"tortoise" boy? Taurus boy? Tzuris boy? Sore-ass boy?

"danger waters" = semen?

album notes say: "Toris buy din mona me" means "Strange boy has confused me"   ?????

Subject: RE: Help: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 07:43 PM

Oy...

Where I came from it was Hold Me Tight - Dainga Wata (lit. "next month") and "Yoruba Boy."

Party song. It's done as a duet. It's the 'client' who wants his money back because she's afraid she's already preggers… again.

Yoruba Singers - Danger Wata

Subject: RE: Help: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 02:51 AM

I found a Joan Baez recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLe82dCbKl4

The Digital Tradition lyrics are a good transcription of the Baez recording:

---

DANGER WATERS

And I holler why, and I holler why
And I holler why, the tortoise boy no mon ami

First he give me one, then he give me two
And he give me three and I holler "Lord have mercy"

First we go in a room, make me mama no know
Make me lie on a sofa, make me have-a me labor

Give me back me shillin', give me back me shillin'
You can stand on your own feet now, give me back me shillin'

Hold me tight, hold me tight, danger waters coming baby hold me tight
hold me tight, hold me tight, danger water coming, baby, hold me

@love @courtship @baby @sex @African
recorded by Joan Baez
filename[ DANGWATR
TUNE FILE: DANGWATR
CLICK TO PLAY
SOF

Phil pointed out a recording by the Yoruba Singers. Does the song appear in songbooks or in other recordings?
I didn't find it in Roud or in the Traditional Ballad Index.

The song is on pp 156-157 of my copy of The Joan Baez Songbook, published in 1964 by Ryerson Music Publishers, a division of Vanguard Records. Here are the notes:

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 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 ordinary speech patterns which strike home directly, if sometimes savagely. (also quoted above by WyoWoman, who was last seen in Seattle).

Notice that in the link Phil gave, the boy is a "Yoruba boy," not a "tortoise boy." the Yoruba people are in Nigeria and Benin.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origins: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 04:30 PM

Leslie Charles (Billy Ocean) sang Caribbean Queen, European Queen or American Queen depending on the audience.

I wouldn't invest too much in the "Yoruba" angle. Just a play on the band's name. I've also heard it as Aruba Boy and Tortugas Boy just no YouTube (yet.)


MorwenEdhelwen1:

"BTW, there is a Jamaican song "Give Me Back Me Shilling", which doesn't have anything to do with this song beyond the line "give me back me shilling." I mentioned in the thread about "Mahalia I Want Back My Dollar."

A Tortuga, Tortoise or Turtle boy was someone who wore a "Brodie" or "M1" helmet out in the midday sun. Potential 'clients' all.

Always thought this one reflected Roaring Lion's Marianne / Mary Ann in theme and the "shillings" lyric a kind of shout out to calypso (Netty Netty) but that's just me thinking. Could be the other way around or nothing at all I s'pose.

Subject: RE: Origins: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 05:22 PM

From the album, "Songs of the African Coast: Cafe Music of Liberia" recorded in 1949 in Monrovia, Liberia by Arthur Alberts and performed by the Greenwood Singers.

Hold Me Tight

The woman leaning over the keys on the front cover is Congress Woman Malinda Jackson Parker the real mad genius behind the Greenwood Singers.

Poking some fun at U.S. Army "Health & Safety" films: Cousin Mosquito (Parts #1 and #2)

Subject: RE: Origins: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Feb 23 - 07:55 PM

I always have thought the lyrics are "torture's going all over me". Guess I didn't hear It correctly.But to me it makes more sense than "tortoise boy no mon ami".

Subject: RE: Origins: Danger Waters - story behind the song?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jan 25 - 11:43 AM

Still have original vinyl bought 65 yrs ago. Always wondered about this song but it
seems clear she's having a baby and the waters (amniotic fluid) have burst. Wants
it kept secret. We'll never know who is tortoise boy and I
just learned the lyrics at age 89. Having been a mystery all
these years. Loved the song; backstory probably unknowable.
Thx Jim H