What are tricky wicky wackies
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janeray1940
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I think it's just nonsense that rhymes. A lot of the American Tin Pan Alley stuff from that era used the phrase "wicky wacky woo" because to Mainlanders it had a sort of exotic sound, but as far as I know it meant nothing. There was a big Hawaiian craze here in the 1910s-1920s and a ton of songs came out with fake Hawaiian (or unspecified Asian) in them; a couple other examples are "Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula" and "Nagasaki."
From the former:
"Down Hawaii way, where I chanced to stray, On an evening I heard a Hula maiden play,
Yaaka hula hickey dula, Yaaka hula hickey du."
And the latter:
"In Fujiyama
You get a mama
Then your troubles increase.
In some pagoda
She orders soda
Earth-shake milk-shakes, ten cents a piece.
They kissy and huggy nice
Oh, By Jingo! It's worth the price.
Back in Nagasaki
Where the fellers chew tobaccy
And the women wicky-wacky-woo."
Sometimes the wicky-wacky bit implied that a woman's morals were a little, um, free for the time
From the former:
"Down Hawaii way, where I chanced to stray, On an evening I heard a Hula maiden play,
Yaaka hula hickey dula, Yaaka hula hickey du."
And the latter:
"In Fujiyama
You get a mama
Then your troubles increase.
In some pagoda
She orders soda
Earth-shake milk-shakes, ten cents a piece.
They kissy and huggy nice
Oh, By Jingo! It's worth the price.
Back in Nagasaki
Where the fellers chew tobaccy
And the women wicky-wacky-woo."
Sometimes the wicky-wacky bit implied that a woman's morals were a little, um, free for the time
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I think it's just nonsense that rhymes. A lot of the American Tin Pan Alley stuff from that era used the phrase "wicky wacky woo" because to Mainlanders it had a sort of exotic sound, but as far as I know it meant nothing. There was a big Hawaiian craze here in the 1910s-1920s and a ton of songs came out with fake Hawaiian (or unspecified Asian) in them; a couple other examples are "Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula" and "Nagasaki."
From the former:
"Down Hawaii way, where I chanced to stray, On an evening I heard a Hula maiden play,
Yaaka hula hickey dula, Yaaka hula hickey du."
And the latter:
"In Fujiyama
You get a mama
Then your troubles increase.
In some pagoda
She orders soda
Earth-shake milk-shakes, ten cents a piece.
They kissy and huggy nice
Oh, By Jingo! It's worth the price.
Back in Nagasaki
Where the fellers chew tobaccy
And the women wicky-wacky-woo."
Sometimes the wicky-wacky bit implied that a woman's morals were a little, um, free for the time
Thank you so much for the info! It makes sense. It's a little embarrassing today if those words are meant to "ape" the sound of Asian or Pacific Island languages. Those songs you linked have good tunes. I never knew them before.
"You get a mama / then your troubles increase" - yeesh! Or maybe not, considering some blues lyrics of the time. Free morals are found in the blues too. Hmm..
Merci M. Fox!
Teek
Well-known member
This is neat, thanks Janeray for posting the info. The Hawaiian craze really got started at the 1915 Pan Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, and the Hawaii building was swamped. They couldn't keep ukuleles in stock. Hawaii was so exotic to mainlanders. I used to search for PPIE original souvenir photos when I dealt in vintage images, they brought good money on eBay. It was really something to see, even through old gelatin silver photos!
@ Bonesoup, I have been checking out the blues for awhile now, just got the Complete Studio Recordings of Mississippi John Hurt, Big Bill Broonzy's "Trouble In Mind", Albert King's "King of Blues Guitar" and a lot of others off iTunes, plus all of Clapton's remakes. Lots of double entendre and especially metaphor. It's great!
@ Bonesoup, I have been checking out the blues for awhile now, just got the Complete Studio Recordings of Mississippi John Hurt, Big Bill Broonzy's "Trouble In Mind", Albert King's "King of Blues Guitar" and a lot of others off iTunes, plus all of Clapton's remakes. Lots of double entendre and especially metaphor. It's great!
I think it's just nonsense that rhymes. A lot of the American Tin Pan Alley stuff from that era used the phrase "wicky wacky woo" because to Mainlanders it had a sort of exotic sound, but as far as I know it meant nothing. There was a big Hawaiian craze here in the 1910s-1920s and a ton of songs came out with fake Hawaiian (or unspecified Asian) in them; a couple other examples are "Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula" and "Nagasaki."
From the former:
"Down Hawaii way, where I chanced to stray, On an evening I heard a Hula maiden play,
Yaaka hula hickey dula, Yaaka hula hickey du."
And the latter:
"In Fujiyama
You get a mama
Then your troubles increase.
In some pagoda
She orders soda
Earth-shake milk-shakes, ten cents a piece.
They kissy and huggy nice
Oh, By Jingo! It's worth the price.
Back in Nagasaki
Where the fellers chew tobaccy
And the women wicky-wacky-woo."
Sometimes the wicky-wacky bit implied that a woman's morals were a little, um, free for the time
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2162.html
Camsuke
Well-known member
Great work Dan! You've got to love that tune, what a beauty!
Never ceases to amaze me the stuff you can learn on our Forums
Teek, I'm really interested in those gelatin silver photos of the PPIE. What a great addition one would be, hung in a frame on the wall of my man cave. Do you have a blog or something about these and other vintage images? As for old blues, check out archive.org if you haven't. Lots of 78s uploaded there.
Modern Nagasaki looks beautiful. I'd love to see a street festival in person.
Thank you my friend.
100%. Something I was curious about and voila. Thank you again Miss Janeray. This has fired my imagination for old songs. There's a guy that collects old uke sheet music and will sell them to you on a dvd or something. I know I read about it here. I think I'm going to order it now. Jumpin Jim is the best and deserves all our thanks - but risque blues, other things like labor songs, etc - these I might have to go to the source to find.
janeray1940
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One last thought on this - I was talking about the "wicky wacky" songs with a friend who plays and teaches uke yesterday, and he wondered if the phrase was in any hapa haole songs. Not that I knew of, but then it hit me - the song "On the Beach at Waikiki" from 1915 is often credited with being the first hapa haole song, and its opening line is "Honi kaua wiki wiki" (which translates sort of to "we kiss quickly," wiki wiki means quickly). This led me to thinking that the Tin Pan Alley guys might have heard this as "wicky wacky," and having no idea what it meant, interjected it as rhyming nonsense in the songs they wrote. Just speculation but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!
ETA: To those who saw this before I edited it, the darned post was cut off after I tried to use a diacritic in the Hawaiian phrase above. Whoops. The computer ate my post!
ETA: To those who saw this before I edited it, the darned post was cut off after I tried to use a diacritic in the Hawaiian phrase above. Whoops. The computer ate my post!
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janeray1940
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I knew there were many more than I had mentioned - thanks for this. And to follow up on my previous post, this convinces me even more that the "wicky wacky" phrase came from "wiki wiki" in the granddaddy of them all, "On the Beach at Waikiki."
