What I call “scraps” are short memories that pop into my head at odd moments, sometimes with a recognizable trigger, sometimes without. I was emailing with a friend of mine about Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, and we were bitching about how faint it was, compared to comets Hale-Bopp (1997) and Hyakutake (1996.)
Hyakutake. Kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Then, ping! there it was, a line from a big band-style song sung by a girl group like the Andrews Sisters:
“Hold tight, hold tight, Boodliyakisake!”
I don’t know where or when I heard it, but it rhymes (mostly) with “comet Hyakutaki.” So where did that come from? One challenge: I had no idea how to spell “boodliyakisaki.” I brought up DuckDuckGo and tried all kinds of spellings, and got nowhere.
Hmm. I started looking up songs titled with or containing “hold tight.” There are several. The lyrics sites turned up nothing remotely close to “boodliyakisaki.” Then another part of the scrap popped up: The song was about shrimp and other seafood. Huh? What? But that’s how scraps work: Focus on one and additional bits of it sometimes pop up.
Figuring out memory scraps can be hard. But this time I tried something new: I brought up Copilot and started a conversation. Here’s a copy/paste:
You
What song begins "hold tight, hold tight" and is about seafood?
Copilot
The song you’re thinking of is "Hold Tight, Hold Tight (Want Some Seafood Mama)" by Sidney Bechet. It was released in 1938 and became quite popular. The song has playful, double-entendre lyrics that celebrate various types of seafood.
Ohhhh…kay. Back to the lyrics sites. I searched for the song and several links popped up. It wasn’t “boodliakasaki.” It was “Foo-ra-de-ack-a-sa-ki.” With hyphens. Here’s a characteristic sample:
Hold tight hold tight hold tight hold tight
Foo-ra-de-ack-a-sa-ki
Want some seafood Mama?
Shrimpers and rice they’re very nice
Hold tight hold tight hold tight hold tight
Foo-ra-de-ack-a-sa-ki
Adding to the peculiarity is that some lyrics sites spelled the magic word a different way. I saw “Fododo-de-yacka saki” and another that I can’t find now. A little further research showed me that the Andrews Sisters had in fact recorded it in 1938. You can listen to the song on YouTube.
It may be a silly thing to write an entry about, but the real message I want to leave with you is that CoPilot found it instantly and gave me some context with citation footnotes. I’m still suspicious of AI-assisted anything, but in this case it worked like a champ.
And now I have a taste for shrimp, sigh.
I wouldn’t consider lyrics sites as definitive on spelling. I’ve seen them substitute homonyms frequently, and it looks like they mainly just listen to the song and type in what they think they hear…making them susceptible to “Pizza Terra” syndrome. I doubt that many, if any, actually get the correct lyrics from the author!
Pete Cetera? Of the band Chicago?
Yes. Many years ago I wrote about hearing a DJ announce a song by an artist I wasn’t familiar with. I thought the band name was Pizza Terra, which would actually make a cool band name if it weren’t for the stellar presence of Pete Cetera in pop music. I come from Chicago and always liked Chicago’s music, but never bothered to learn the names of its band members.
Here are the lyrics I found:
Choo choo to Broadway foo Cincinnati
Don’t get icky with the one two three
Life is just so fine on the solid side of the line, rip
Hold tight, hold tight, hold tight, hold tight
Fododo-de-yacka saki
Want some sea food, Mama
Shrimps and rice they’re very nice
Hold tight, hold tight, hold tight, hold tight
Fododo-de-yacka saki
Want some sea food, Mama
Shrimps and rice they’re very nice
I like oysters, lobsters too
I like my tasty butter fish, foo
When I come home late at night
I get my favorite dish, fish
Hold tight, hold tight, hold tight, hold tight
Fododo-de-yacka saki
Want some seafood, Mama
Shrimps and rice they’re very nice
Bad da do da, a, da de do da do da, ba da da da do da
Fododododo Yacka sacki
Want some seafood, Mama
Shrimps and rice they’re always very nice
Fododo dya, Fododo dya Fododo-de-yacka saki
Want some seafood Mama
Oh, won’t you give it to me
‘Cause I’m as happy as can be
When the seafood comes to me
La-da-da, la-da-da, la-da-da
I like oysters, lobsters, too
Ba-da-da-dat-dat-da-dada-data
When I get home late at night
I get my favorite dish, fish
Hold tight, hold tight, hold tight, hold tight
Fododo-de-yacka saki
Want some sea food, Mama
Shrimps and rice are very nice
Hold tight, won’t cha hold tight
Hold tight, fododododo yacka sacki
Want some seafood, Mama
Shrimpers a-hand ri-hice a-hare very nice
I like oysters, lobsters, too
I like my tasty butter fish, Joe
When I come home late at night
Drip drip dripin’ on the window pane
Wash it
Hold tight do-dat-do-day
Hold tight she wants some seafood, Mama
Shrimpers and rice they’re very nice
I like oysters, lobsters too,
I like my tasty butter fish, foo
When I come home late at night
I get my favorite dish, fish
Hold tight, hold tight
Hold tight, hold tight
Want some seafood, oh Mama
Shrimpers and rice, oh hold tight
Yes indeedy, that’s it. A wonderfully goofy song that was supposed to have suggestive lyrics. I guess it didn’t take much to be “suggestive” in 1938. My folks used to have records by the Andrews Sisters, unless I misrecall, but this one wasn’t in the stack.