Bongo Joe

 

He sit beneath the orange island moon

While pretty tourist girls swim in the blue lagoon

He eat the coconut, he drink the pint of rum

And then he let his fingers loose on the bongo drum

 

Bongo Joe, Bongo Joe

You know nobody beat the drum like you do Joe

 

For many mile around the tourists come to share

That bouncy bongo beat Joe put into the air

He make the happy people of the world go wild

He make us dance in the street like the little bitty child

 

Oh, that Joe, Bongo Joe

You know nobody beat the drum like you do Joe

 

Go Joe, bongo

Make the happy people dance in the street

 

One day I went away and when I come back home

I heard the awful word, old Bongo Joe were gone

He took his bongo drum, he moved to San Antone

And now he beat the bongo beat down by the Alamo

 

Bongo Joe, why’d you go

You know nobody beat the drum like you do Joe

 

Go Joe, bongo

Make the happy people dance in the street

 

So if you’re ever down to San Antonio

Be sure to listen for the beat of the Bongo Joe

He got that island sound so, buddy, when you come

Be sure to bring a coconut and a pint of rum and a girl

For old Joe

You know the pretty girl she is what made the Bongo go

Ain’t that right, Bongo Joe

It is the pretty girl what made you move to San Antone

Yeah, we know, Bongo Joe

It is the pretty girl what always make the bongo go

 

One more time, now here we go

You know nobody make the fun

You know nobody drink the rum

You know nobody beat the drum like old Bongo Joe

 

© 1979. Billy Marabella.

NOTES ON THIS SONG
Bongo Joe was a real guy and the story this song tells is very accurate. The latest I heard on Bongo Joe was that he died in San Antonio. You can still get his music on CD. Google him. Curiously, the music he played for the tourists was way different from what he recorded. He was doing what Tom Waits does now back in the early sixties. I wish I had known him personally. Outside of church choirs, he was my only experience with live music till my teens.