Lyr Req: Gunga Walk

Subject: Lyr Req: Gunga Walk
From: GUEST,Peri
Date: 01 Apr 25 - 04:24 AM

Hi, is the search function not working?

I woke up singing Gunga Walk (life long Spinners fan), and thought I'd look up the lyrics. Most results are a Clint Eastwood version, which got me thinking of the song's history - surely he didn't write it?

So can anyone help me with the lyrics, or the history of this classic folk song, or point me at the thread that's already covered it?

Thanks.
Peri

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gunga Walk
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Apr 25 - 11:41 AM

Tips from Joe Offer and others:

Tech: Mudcat SEARCH engine tips-try the Filter

Mudcat Search Tips

Plus the search from the outside tip:
Use Google Advanced Search with keywords in the All Words line, exact word or phrase in that second line, and point it at https://mudcat.org in the site or domain line.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gunga Walk
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Apr 25 - 12:15 PM

Discogs.com has a 1980 record label for "Matty Gunga Walk::
https://www.discogs.com/release/1690849-Clint-Eastwood-General-Saint-Matty-Gunga-Walk (click on the image to see it better)

It shows the song was recorded by Clint Eastwood & General Saint, backed by the Inity Rockers. The songwriters are identified as General Saint and Clint Eastwood. The label is Greensleeves, which seems to have produced a number of reggae-style or mento recordings. It is apparently a medley of reggae songs. I picked out Mary Ann and "Here We Go Loop-de-Loop," and a lot of babble.

Here's a recording of "Matty Gunga Walk" by Eastwood and Saint:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NeT5oMUvS8

I couldn't find a recording of "Gunga Walk" by the Spinners, the Detroit Spinners, or the Liverpool Spinners - but that doesn't mean they didn't record the song.

Ah, there's a page that says the (Liverpool?) Spinners recorded "Gungu Walk" on a 1966 album titled The Spinners Live Performance, also on Another LP by The Spinners (1967), "Gunga Walk" on The Spinners Vol. 1 and "Gungu Walk" on The Spinners Collection.
http://www.chanteycabin.co.uk/Spinners%20web/Spinners.htm

And here is a recording of "Gungu Walk" by the Spinners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86mMlkHhpyI
I don't think the song by Clint Eastwood & General Saint is the same as "Gungu Walk" by the Spinners. Apparently, the Spinners recording attributes the song to "Trad, arr. Bosworth."

I don't think I'll try transcribing the song because a lot of it is not understandable and I have no reason to think it's authentic.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gunga Walk
From: GUEST,threelegsoman
Date: 01 Apr 25 - 12:20 PM

The Spinners version is spelled Gungu not Gunga.
The Clint Eastwood is not the famous film star, but a DJ who joined up with and English partner and went by the group name: Clint Eastwood & General Saint.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gunga Walk
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Apr 25 - 12:51 PM

Clint Eastwood and General Saint at IMDB gives a few links to click on but they tend to loop back to a fairly empty part of the database. It says there was a program called Pop Carnival and there was apparently an episode called "Clint Eastwood and General Saint." Starring Winston Hislop who shows up with a 1982 soundtrack.

Subject: Gunga Walk / Gungu Walk
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Apr 25 - 02:05 PM

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/clint-eastwood-mn0000160428 has this about Clint Eastwood:

Born Robert Brammer, dancehall deejay Clint Eastwood first made a name for himself performing with deejay General Saint (born Winston Hislop) in Great Britain. Noted for putting on lively, theatrical and humorous performances, Eastwood and Saint came to be known as a novelty act in Jamaica. In the mid '80s the two split up to pursue solo careers. Their biggest selling album was Two Bad D.J. (1981).

Eastwood was born September 18, 1957 in Kingston, Jamaica

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/general-saint-mn0000202329 has this about General Saint, who was born in the 1950s:

Born Winston Hislop in Jamaica, dancehall deejay General Saint first made a name for himself performing with deejay Clint Eastwood (born Robert Brammer) in Great Britain. First recording with Junjo Lawes, Eastwood & Saint became noted for putting on lively, theatrical and humorous performances in the late '70s through the early '80s. At the height of their popularity they were known as one of Jamaica's better novelty acts. The two split up to pursue solo careers in the mid '80s. Their biggest selling album was Two Bad D.J. (1981).

But like I said above, I don't think they wrote the song recorded by the Spinners, and we still don't have a transcription of the Spinners song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gunga Walk
From: GUEST,Susanne (skw)
Date: 06 Apr 25 - 05:31 PM

I've got the Live Performance LP but it doesn't carry any sleevenotes, and the lyrics don't seem to merit transcribing imho though most of it is fairly easily understood and repetitive. Wouldn't try the chorus, though! And no, I don't have any idea what a "gungu walk" might be.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gunga Walk
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 12 Apr 25 - 07:09 AM

LOL. It's a mento. Mento, if you're unsure, is a Jamaican "folk song" style similar to calypso. It's based in tunes for the old, indigenized version of the quadrille. The tunes, as songs, easily cross with group-play game-songs. Most Jamaicans probably know the tune (but not necessarily where it came from) as well as you'd know any nursery rhyme—it's just a piece of culture.

For example, you can hear Lovindeer riffing on the tune here, at 0:58:
https://youtu.be/_1aS7IPlAC4?si=_mlaQhlIwWUAqkPe

Here's another ragga track that steals it for the chorus:
https://youtu.be/AzAACzeYzrw?si=N_Mnq1clA4Y2fEtC

I don't even know where all I've heard it—it's just "there," in the culture. Also, Jamaicans love the phrase "Mi no want"—it's a really catchy hook that you can follow with whatever.

From the sound of it, I strongly suspect that it's "traditional" from the 19th c. folk song repertoire, however I can't cite any source for that. It just sounds exactly like all the songs from then: the rhythm, the tune, the patois lyrics about rural stuff and sex.

There's always the possibility that some popular recording re-distributed it. So...

It was recorded among the earliest recordings of the Jamaican music industry, by The Jamaican Calypsonians, under the title "Miss Goosie":
https://youtu.be/pzsTuRTNrHM?si=DkH4uyxn9_Ls4DEq

This earliest recorded music was a dressed-up version of mento. Kind of an urban arrangement of the rough, rural mento music which was strategically marketed under the label of "calypso."

This performance is a medley, I think having three songs. Ends with "Drive Her Home." What I'm calling the first *two* songs have been linked by the "Goosey" theme. That is, the first song is about Mr. Goosey in the bed of his mistress, and the second song--I believe it is a second song and not a continuation of the first--is the song in question, best labeled as "Gungo Walk." But the performer has slipped in the name "Goosey" into Gungo Walk to connect them.

The lyrics to this rendition of "Gungo Walk" are like:

Mi no wan', mi no wan' weh [Goosey] wall a left
Mi no wan', mi no wan' weh [Goosey] wall a left
Goosey run a mile and a half inna gungo walk
Goosey run a mile and a half inna gungo walk

As for the first song, you can hear a later, reggae adaptation of this bawdy song—without the Gungo Walk part—here, by Max Romeo (who began his career as a bawdy reggae singer):
https://youtu.be/BOXfOXaxClg?si=5WvRmPwavsxlnioE

Max Romeo does reference the "gungo walk" imagery though, so maybe these "two" songs are connected after all.

Incidentally, whereas many narrators of the history of Jamaican music WRONGLY assert that the mento was a building block of the ska that kicked off Jamaican's popular music in earnest in the early 60s, countryside-based mento wasn't much of an influence at all. It wasn't until around 1968, with the advent of "reggae," that musicians reached back to mento as an influence. Mento sort of disappears again in the 70s as reggae strays from its bawdy roots into this "righteous" thing, but then after Bob Marley dies and the dancehall DJs bring back the old school bawdry in 1981, it's back again.

A Trinidad-style calypsonian, Lord Kitchener, did a rewrite, "Old Lady Walk a Mile and a Half," which is almost unrecognizable. The melodic rhythm, though still very syncopated, has been somehow "flattened out" as I hear it -- it's taken away the core "mento" rhythmic feeling.
https://youtu.be/lpSHoteeGic?si=pvmHA4YPnCbiiG4i

Clint Eastwood and General Saint are DJs (MCs in USA hip-hop parlance) toasting in rub-a-dub dancehall style over the "Taxi" riddim. They are just riffing on fragments of Jamaican musical culture. After all, re-mix and hip-hop derive from this Jamaican aesthetic. Hence, when they riff on the Gungo Walk melody, its another parody (but not as extreme as Lovindeer's!):

Mi no wan', mi no wan' weh di man dem wall a left
Mi no wan', mi no wan' weh di man dem wall a left
'ca man Goose run a mile and a half inna matey gungo walk
'ca man Goose run a mile and a half inna matey gungo walk

"Matey" is mistress.
"Gungo walk" is the space between rows in a field of gungo peas (pigeon peas). You can think of walking between the gungo peas as a rough metaphor for intimacy in the sense of romantic involvement generally, or more specifically as a metaphor for a penetrating a vagina.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gunga Walk
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 13 Apr 25 - 12:29 AM

BTW RIP Max Romeo (yesterday)