The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #9916   Message #3250495
Posted By: Joe Offer
04-Nov-11 - 06:54 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Marianne / Mary Ann (calypso)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Marianne / Mary Ann
Oh....look at this, from History of Songs, 1957:
From the Folkways Caribbean Rhythms album:

SIDE I, Band 3: SOUND BAY GAL (Calypso) Vocal by: "Sonny" Dilbert and
Sandino Ellis

SOUND BAY GIRL

CHORUS:
All day all night Mary Ann,
Sittin' by the roadside digging sand;
All day all night Mary Ann,
Sittin' by the roadside digging sand (or catching nian)

Sound Bay gal don't eat good food they buy their codfish
Sound Bay gal don't eat good food they buy their codfish,
Sound Bay gal don't eat good food they buy their codfish.


...no further lyrics, and I can't find an online recording.

Notes: The lyrics of "Sound Bay Gal," for example, the song known throughout the Caribbean and to American calypso enthusiasts as "Mary Ann," refer to the practice of eating codfish, a food associated with the lower class, in a part of the island where the "poorer set" is said to live. (recorded in 1957 on the Island of San Andrès by Thomas J. Price, Jr. San Andrès is a small, English-speaking island community of approximately five thousand inhabitants off the coast of Nicaragua.
Oops! - posted by Morwen above, but this one includes a bit more background information.