Mama Killed A Chicken, Thought It Was A Duck

[JSngry]

Ok, she put it on the table with it's legs straight up. And the children got a glass to catch the liquor out its ass.

Yeah, so?

I don't get the significance of confusing a duck and a chicken, and I've eaten plenty of both. Other than that cooking a duck is a helluva lot more messier (and that a duck has no white meat), I don't see why that's anything to sing about. Maybe its a metaphor for getting your hopes up based on a false assumption, but I dunno.

Any ideas?

[Spontooneous]

Down on the farm, they all ask...

[Free For All]

I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about, but I'm gettin' me a hankerin' for a big ol' slab o'TURDUCKEN!!

[Jim Alfredson]

I don't eat anything with the word "turd" in it.

Except musturd.

[Free For All]

I don't eat anything with the word "turd" in it.

←

Eat, no. But I have been know to polish a few here and there.

EDIT: Perhaps this belongs in THIS THREAD!

Edited June 6, 2005 by Free For All

[Jim Alfredson]

I don't eat anything with the word "turd" in it.

←

Eat, no. But I have been know to polish a few here and there.

←

Really? I've just plain known a few here and there.

[Free For All]

I don't eat anything with the word "turd" in it.

←

Baby Ruth, anyone?

[JSngry]

I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about...

It's an old, old, OLD (and recycled, if that's not redundant as far as being old goes...blues lyric. I've never been able to figure out exactly what the point is.

Here's what I do know - cooking a duck involves a massive amount of grease coming out of the bird. So if you cook it upside down, or bring it to the table with its legs in the air, the possibility of a lot of that grease coming out of the, uh, "rear opening" is much higher with a duck than it is with a chicken. And with grease, you get soppin' juice.

Now, maybe the thing is a metaphor for making a lesbian move and getting rebuffed. I don't know. but them old blues lyrics aren't averse to going there, if you know what I mean.

[Joe G]

I don't eat anything with the word "turd" in it.

←

Eat, no. But I have been know to polish a few here and there.

EDIT: Perhaps this belongs in THIS THREAD!

←

I thought for sure you were going to link to THIS thread!

[Spontooneous]

TITLE: The Duck Yas-Yas-Yas

MATRIX NO.: C-3485-

SINGER: Tampa Red [with Georgia Tom Dorsey]

COMPOSER(S):

DATE OF REC.: 13 May 1929

ORIGINAL ISSUE(S): Vocalion 1277

REISSUE(S): Yazoo L-1039

TRANSCRIPTION:

THE DUCK YAS-YAS-YAS

by Tampa Red and Georgia Tom Dorsey

Mama bought a rooster, she thought it was a duck.

She brought him to the table with his legs straight up.

In came the children with the cup and a glass,

To catch the liquor from his yas yas yas.

Babe, oh, babe, have you ever been to Spain?

See those hoodoo women, shakin' that thing.

They got rings on their fingers, bells on their toes.

What they've got good, babe, nobody knows.

I'm goin' down Market Street,

Where the men and women all do meet.

That's where the men do the Georgia Rub,

Women fall in line with a big washtub.

Me and my gal walkin' down the street.

She caught the rheumatism in her feet.

She stooped over to pick some grass,

And the same thing struck her in the yas yas yas.

You catch the train you call Forty-Nine,

carries you down to Caroline.

You catch the train you call Forty-Eight,

Takes you right in to the Golden Gate.

You shake your shoulders, you shake 'em fast.

You can't your shoulders, shake your yas yas yas.

Drink some rooster soup before going to bed.

Wake up in the mornin', find your own self dead.

Down on Morgan there's a good location,

Right there next to a gasoline station.

That's where you'll get your car's oil and grease.

Women cryin', "Honey, won't you come in, please."

I'm gonna sing this verse, ain't gonna sing no more.

Somebody's knockin' on my door.

The people upstairs have gone to bed.

I'd better stop that noise 'fore they crack my head.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Gorgen Antonsson (antonsson.se@mbox304.swipnet.se), 6 Feb 1995

[Alexander]

This use of the phrase "yas-yas" is also found in Charley Jordan's "Keep It Clean."

"If you want to hear

That elephant laugh

Take him down to the river

And wash his yas-yas-yas..."

[RichardRusk]

First of all, to J$ngry, the lyrics are just nonsense. The point is saying yas, yas, yas for ass. Naughty, naughty.

I've heard a version around New Orleans with only three verses that I can recall:

Mama cooked a chicken, thought it was a duck,

put it on the table with his legs all sticking up.

Along came little sister with a spoon and a glass,

and she tried to get some gravy from his yas, yas, yas.

I got a gal, so long and tall,

sits in the kitchen with her feets in the hall.

She shakes her shoulders; she shakes 'em fast,

but you oughta see her shaking her yas, yas, yas.

My gal and I walking down the street,

when something struck her in the bottom of her feet.

She sat down ... in the grass,

and the same thing struck her in her yas, yas, yas.

It's a 16 bar blues some of the traditional jazz bands do. I THINK it's one Danny Barker used to do.

Why am I responding to posts that are 7 years old? lol Oh well, it's not like my time is worth anything.

[danasgoodstuff]

Maybe the significance is that"Mama shoudn't cook when she's so fucked up"?

[BeBop]

Regardless what the next line of verse is, in my "mind's ear", I fit all sorts of rhymes. It's like a set-up. A leading tone.

[BeBop]

And yes, I am thinking about the word "cluck". Or maybe "pluck".

[John L]

Yea, I have always wondered about this verse as well. But I suspect that it was something real nasty that is full of word substitutes. "duck with legs sticking up" is not so hard to figure out, but the rest is curious.