Yes! We have no bananas
Yes! We Have No Bananas is an evergreen by Frank Silver (* 1896, † 1960; text) and Irving Cohn (* 1898, † 1961; music). The German text Just Bananas! comes from Fritz Löhner-Beda .
History of origin
The American authors Frank Silver and Irving Cohn created the song called Yes! We have no bananas for the Broadway revue Make It Snappy , which premiered on April 13, 1922 at the Winter Garden Theater. The song was sung by Eddie Cantor . After just 96 performances, the curtain fell for the last time on July 1, 1922. The song with the distinctive title remained known, however, because Thomas A. Dorgan headlined Yes… We Have no Bananas in the Wisconsin News of July 18, 1922 .
Background of the novelty song Yes! We have no Bananas was a current banana shortage in the USA, which had led to delivery bottlenecks due to the brown rot that occurred in Brazil . Allegedly, a Greek greengrocer in New York is said to have pointed out the shortage of supply to the authors with this sentence. The title begins with a positive "Yes!", But continues with a negative.
Records
The music industry picked up the title after it was published on March 23, 1923 by a music publisher. The first recording was made by the tenor and baritone duo Furman & Nash , recorded in March 1923 (Columbia A3873). This was followed by a version of the Great White Way Orchestra (April 26, 1923; Victor 19068), published in July 1923, which reached number 3 on the US hit parade . The first number one hit came from Ben Selvin (vocals: Irving Kaufman ; May 1923, Vocalion 14590), who was number one for 2 weeks after being released in September 1923. This was followed by Billy Jones (June 8, 1923; Victor 19068), who even stayed in first place for 5 weeks after publication in October 1923 (Edison Blue Amberol 4778 and Edison Diamond Disc 51183). João de Barro released the Brazilian version in 1938 as Yes, Noi Tennos Bananas , the Pied Pipers considered a version in the movie Luxury Liner (premiere: September 9, 1948), Spike Jones (1950) and Louis Prima (1950) followed. The Dutch Boswachters came out in 1999 with Het Bananenlied .
German versions
The first German recording was made in 1923 by Wilfried Krüger and his orchestra (vocals Willi Rose ). The German text was written by the successful librettist and songwriter Fritz Löhner-Beda . The title of all bananas! and the refrain is likely to be more widespread in Germany than the English original:
Bananas of all
things, she demands bananas from me!
Not peas, not beans, not even melons,
that is a 'chicanery' from her!
I have lettuce, plums and asparagus,
also Olomouc quargel ,
but of all things bananas,
she asks me for bananas!
Löhner-Beda was deported to Auschwitz in 1942 because of his Jewish origins and murdered a few weeks later. Among the most famous interpreters of the German version are the Berlin chanson singer Claire Waldoff , who she performed in 1924, the dance orchestra Efim Schachmeister (1924) and the Comedian Harmonists .
The danceable piece is counted as a subspecies of the foxtrot , the shimmy . Another version can be found on the CD Hunger (1999) by the Willem Breuker Kollektief - sung by the bandleader who died in 2010 . In Billy Wilder's film comedy Eins, Zwei, Drei (1961), Friedrich Hollaender, the band leader of a dance band, sings the German text, both in the dubbed version and in the English original.
The catchy melody found u. a. in a Maggi advertisement for the use of the 5-minute terrine .
swell
- ^ Fred R. Shapiro: The Yale Book of Quotations . 2006, p. 210
- ↑ the translation of Ilya Ehrenburg's memoirs, according to ( people - years - life , special edition Munich in 1965, Volume II from 1923 to 1941, pages 81 and 91), rang Going Bananas (in the German version) in 1924 already in Moscow the NEP period from the gramophones
- ↑ One, two, three in the IMDb
Web links
- Audio sample (with Willi Rose ), accessed on April 12, 2011