Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents a sound file & a video of the Beginning Of The End's 1971 hit song "Funky Nassau".
This post also includes includes lyrics to the song “Funky Nassau" as well as information & comments about this song. A video of Carlos Santana and his band performing "Funky Nassau" is also showcased in this post.
Update: Addendum #1 to this post showcases a video of "Funky Nassau" from The Blues Brothers movie and information about that song in that movie.
Addendum #2 presents a slightly edited version of an early 1970s New York City playground rhyme which includes the words "funky nassau". I've also added my comments about that rhyme.
The content of this post is presented for historical, folkloric, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the composers of this song and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks to all those who are featured in these embedded videos and thanks also to all the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
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This is an updated version of a pancocojams post that was originally published in 2012. Thanks to an anonymous commenter who mentioned the song "Funky Nassau" in the discussion thread for a pancocojams post about another Caribbean song Ma Ma, Bake That Johnny Cake, Christmas Comin’ (examples & lyrics) http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/12/mama-bake-that-johnny-cake-christmas.html?showComment=1554269131945#c779957598999002600
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INFORMATION ABOUT NASSAU
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bahamas
"The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is a country consisting of more than 3,000 islands, cays and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, north of Cuba and Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic and Haiti), northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands and southeast of the US state of Florida. Its capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence."
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LYRICS: FUNKY NASSAU
(Songwriters: MUNNINGS, RAPHAEL/FITZGERALD, TYRONE)
Nassau's gone funky
Nassau's gone soul
We've got a doggone beat now
We're gonna call our very own
Naussau rock
And Nassau roll
Nassau's got a
Whole lot of soul
Feel all right
Mini skirts, maxi skirts
And Afro hairdo
People doing their own thing
They don't care about you and me
Nassau's gone funky
Nassau's got soul now, oh, yeah
And we've got a doggone beat now
We're gonna take care of business too
Listen to the drummer
Playing his beat
Listen to the bass man
Go get the same groovy beat
Listen to the guitar
Giving that soul some tune
Feeling good
Bring it on home to you
Ain't it funky now
Oh, yeah, funky
Funky Nassau
Listen, listen good
New York, you know
Has got a whole lot of soul
Good God
London town is too
Doggone cold, yeah
Nassau's got sunshine
And this you all know, yeah
But we've gone funky
And we got some soul too
All right
Funky Nassau, funky Nassau
Funky Nassau, funky Nassau
Funky Nassau, funky Nassau
Funky Nassau, listen
Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/t/the_beginning_of_the_end/funky_nassau.html
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INFORMATION ABOUT THE GROUP "THE BEGINNING OF THE END"
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_of_the_End_(band)
"The Beginning of the End was a funk group from Nassau, Bahamas. The group formed in 1969 and consisted of three brothers, a fourth member on bass, and a fifth on guitar. They released an album entitled Funky Nassau in 1971 on Alston Records (a subsidiary of Atlantic Records), and the track "Funky Nassau - Part I" became a hit single in the U.S., peaking at #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and #7 on the Billboard Black Singles chart. The same track reached #31 in the UK Singles Chart in March 1974.
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For a slightly different summary, read the information that was posted by Raphael Munnings with his posting of Santana's rendition of "Funky Nassau": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG7yp3y35Y8
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SHOWCASE VIDEOS
Example #1: Funky Nassau- beginning of the end
hehewuti212, Uploaded on Dec 1, 2007
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Example #2: Carlos Santana Funky Nassau "Live in LA" October 2, 2008 YouTube
Raphael Munnings, Uploaded on Oct 31, 2011
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ADDENDUM #1: INFORMATION ABOUT THE SONG "FUNKY NASSAU" IN THE MOVIE "BLUES BROTHERS 2000"
Blues Brothers 2000 is a sequel to the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers. Click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blues_Brothers_(film) for information about that movie.
Information about the 2000 movie is included in the summary to this showcased YouTube video:
The Blues Brothers - Funky Nassau.mp4 [Blues Brother 2000 movie]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqTHrwqQD-w&feature=player_embedded
Embedding not permitted
Raphael Munnings, Published on May 20, 2012
..."FUNKY NASSAU debuted on the Billboard 100 chart #94, Peaked #15, and stayed on for 14 Weeks They [Beginning Of The End band] released an album entitled Funky Nassau in 1971 on Alston Records (a subsidiary of Atlantic Records), and the track "Funky Nassau - Part I" became a hit single in the U.S., peaking at #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and #7 on the Billboard Black Singles chart. The same track reached #31 in the UK Singles Chart in March 1974.
A surprise hit, it [the song "Funky Nassau"] reached the top 15 on both the pop and R&B charts. It was a success for Henry Stone during his days at Atlantic Records, and the money he earned helped him start up TK Records in Miami shortly thereafter.
[...]
Blues Brothers 2000
With [John] Landis again directing, the sequel to The Blues Brothers [movie] was made in 1998. It fared considerably worse than its predecessor with fans and critics, though it is more ambitious in terms of musical performances by the band and has a more extensive roster of guest artists than the first film. The story picks up 18 years later with Elwood being released from prison, and learning that his brother, Jake Blues, has died. He is once again prevailed upon to save some orphans, and with a 10-year-old boy named Buster Blues (J. Evan Bonifant) in tow, Elwood again sets about the task of reuniting his band. He recruits some new singers, Mighty Mack (John Goodman) and Cab (Joe Morton), a policeman who was Curtis' son. All the original band members are found, as well as some performers from the first film, including Aretha Franklin and James Brown. There are dozens of other guest performers, including Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Junior Wells, Lonnie Brooks, Eddie Floyd, Wilson Pickett, Isaac Hayes, Sam Moore, Taj Mahal and Jonny Lang, Blues Traveler, as well as an all-star supergroup led by B. B. King called the Louisiana Gator Boys. On the run from the police, Russian mafia and a racist militia, the band eventually ends up in Louisiana, where they enter a battle of the bands overseen by a voodoo practitioner named Queen Moussette (Erykah Badu). During a song by the Blues Brothers (a Caribbean number called "Funky Nassau"), a character played by Paul Shaffer asks to cut in on keyboards, which Murph allows. This marks the first time in a film that the Blues Brothers play with their original keyboardist.
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Notice the red, yellow, and green rows on the jacket worn by the man who cuts in on keyboards. Those are colors associated with Jamaica (and are also considered to be pan-African colors. Also, notice the dread hairstyles that are worn by the character playing the Queen and the man cutting in to play the keyboard. Both of these details are nods to the Bahamian origin of the song "Funky Nassau".
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ADDENDUM #2: RELATED PLAYGROUND RHYME EXAMPLE
The earliest example that I've found to date of a playground rhyme version of the military cadence "The Duckworth Chant" is this one that includes the words "funky nassau".
"i remember a song girls would sing more than the guys..in the polo grounds projects 155th 8th ave.. a group of girls singing it loud walking from school everyday from ps 156 i think it was..it went
youre left
youre left
your left right left
my ass is shakin
my belts too tight
my balls are shakin from left to right*
umm funky nassau
umm funky nassau
your momma
your poppa
youre greasy nanny**
youre awful nanny
you toot and toot ?
dont prostitute
dont try to switch
you dirty b&&ch***
no hesitation
no revelation ****
just go to hell
and ring my bell
...it was 1970 I remember…"
-Giest,frank from ny, http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=73808http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=73808
Jody's children - kids' rhymes from military chant, December 18, 2007
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WARNING: That discussion thread includes profanity & sexually explicit language
*These are lines from the military cadence entitled "The Duckworth Chant" ("Your Left")
**These are lines from various children's playground rhymes. The lines usually are "Your momma, Your daddy, Your greasy grimey granny"[not "nanny"]. The lines that usually follow those are: "she's 69, she thinks she's fine/she goes out with Frankenstein."
***This curse word was fully spelled out in this example.
****These are lines from the playground rhyme "Concentration"
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The blogger who posted this example wrote that he remembered it from 1970, but he also pointed out that the lines "funky nassau" comes from the "R&B" record "Funky Nassau". Since that record wasn't released until 1971, this example is likely from that year or shortly thereafter. By the way, "Nassau County" is a portion of metropolitan New York City, which might have been why the girls included it in their rhyme.
Like many other playground rhymes, this example (which I've titled "Your Left/Funky Nassau" to distinguish it from other "Your Left" rhymes/chants) is made up of lines from a number of other compositions.
The hit disco song "Ring My Bell" wasn't recorded until 1979, but since this blogger remembers this playground rhyme from girls chanting it while walking to public school, it's likely that he wouldn't have placed his memory of it in the year 1970.
Although this example doesn't include the word "bang bang choo choo train", I consider it the earliest example I have found to date of that VERY popular children's playground rhyme. I do so because that rhyme includes usually adapted versions of those beginning lines, which are lifted from the Duckworth chant. The adapted words usually are "my back is achin/ my bra's too tight/my butt (or "my booty's") shakin from the left to the right".
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