Funny thing. According to my research, when the Bahamian singer "Blind Bake" Higgs, (mentioned on this site before) sang this song, he kept Houdini's name in line 3 of verse 2. Apparently in a book written by Joseph Mitchell, the New Yorker writer who met Houdini and wrote a profile of him in 1939, Houdini told Mitchell that he often drank gin and coconut water :). So maybe this song is inspired by Houdini not being able to find gin and coconut water in America? "Gin and coconut water, I cannot get in America."