Minnie the Moocher

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Minnie the Moocher

(with thanks to Cab Calloway who didn't write the original either)

Lemme tell you the tale of Minnie the Moocher
She was a low-down hoochie-coocher
She was the roughest toughest frail
But Minnie had a heart as big as a whale.

Sing heidie heidie high
Sing heidie heidie ho
Sing heidie heidie hey
Sing heidie heidie ho

Minnie dealt with the King o’ Sweden
He gave her everthing she was needin’
He took her down to Chinatown
Showed her how to kick the gong around

Sing heidie heidie high
Cha
Sing heidie heidie ho
Cha-ray
Sing heidie heidie hey
Cha
Sing heidie heidie ho
Cha-ray-lo

Minnie’s gone now but she ain’t forgotten
She done ever’thing a good girl ought’nt
Some folk claim she was really a boy
Just another queer was ever’one’s toy

Sing heidie heidie high
Cha
Sing heidie heidie hoo
Cha-meen
Sing heidie heidie hey
Cha-meen-dat
Sing heidie heidie how
Cha-meen-dat-troo?

The cops they came to take her down
They want her to sing for folks uptown
They gave her some of what she been tastin’
She died in her cell, asleep in the station

Sing heidie heidie hoo
Hoo kilt min
Sing heidie heidie high
Thass low jack
Sing heidie heidie hey
You shoor you din
Sing heidie heidie how
you know jack

Minnie too sweet to turn on a friend
Thass just how a ho meet her end
This bin the song of Minnie the Moocher
She was a low down hoochie-coocher

Sing heidie heidie high
Sing heidie heidie ho
Sing heidie heidie hey
Sing heidie heidie lo

And the moral of this story…
If you ain’t too thick…
She had her life, she had her fun…
Just cause you got a dick
Don’t mean you gotta be one.

Minnie the moocher, mm-mm
Minnie the moocher, mm-mm
She was the toughest gal in that jail
Cause she had a heart as big as a whale.

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Comments

I don't think Minnie actually MET the King of Sweden

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laika's picture

in every version I've heard her hooking up with him seemed to be part of her dreams after she learned how to kick the gong around (for another opium smoker's grandiose fantasies see the blues song WILLIE THE WEEPER); but the mythology of Minnie the Moocher is complex and often contradictory; sometimes she dies, sometimes she turns into Betty Boop; and in the song MINNIE THE MOOCHER'S WEDDING DAY the Swedish King does show up to "give the bride away", although that whole song might be another drug induced fantasy of hers.

Could Minnie be trans? Sure, why not?! She lived her life on the margins of society ("A thousand cokies singin' Hidey Hidey Ho"), much of it sounding like it took place in what they called the "gay" parts of town 100 years ago; a term that originally encompassed prostitution, gambling, dope- anything illegal and fun; and also homosexuals and "sissy men" (see Kokomo Arnold's "Sissy Man Blues"); the part of town where people who dared to defy gender norms were marginally safer, at least from the Law.

And your little ditty wouldn't be the weirdest version of this song.
Some go much, much farther afield from the original:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGzd_DrYotQ
(^a very young Danny Elfman in his brother Richard's
shoestring-budget film The Forbidden Zone)
~Hugs, Veronica the Viper

Something

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Something about the tale of Minnie that speaks to people, and not just Calloway's histrionics and dada dance moves.

It's a fearsome tale of tragedy and celebration. I was trying to go to sleep and this version was running through my head, so I had to get up and write it down.

Cleverly done

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And I appreciated Greybeard's link.

>>> Kay

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