Yes! We Have No Bananas

Performer: Harry Blake
Frank Silver (lyrics), Irving Cohn (music)
Perfect, 1923
MP3 1,308K

Bane of my childhood! Nightmare of an infant weasel! Curse be upon the mustaches of Silver and Cohn!

My cousin and I used to spend several weeks with my grandmother in Summer, where my cousin (O horrible day!) found a copy of the sheet music for "Yes! We Have No Bananas" which I believe she subsequently worked out how to play on the piano, but which she certainly learned to sing.

Incessantly. Day and night. Until I went mad (mad, I tell you!).

By the end of the Summer, I'd wrestled her down to one performance a day. At night. After lights-out. A little later every night until I thought surely, surely she's asleep now, it won't be tonight. I'm spared. She's forgotten. I can hear her breathing, I think. Tonight it won't come. Tonight the banana song will pass this house.

And then out of the darkness, softly, "we've string beans and honions, cabbAHges and scallions..."

  One of the best-loved and best-remembered of novelty songs, though most people seem to know only the chorus and not the whole plot. Wouldn't do these days, of course, making fun of a noble Greek immigrant fruiterer and his English language deficiencies. The only accent it is permitted to find amusing is that of the American South. Y'all.
  The lyrics to this version:

There's a fruit store on our street
It's run by a Greek.
And he keeps good things to eat,
But you should hear him speak!

When you ask him anything,
He never answers "no".
He just yes-es you to death,
And as he takes your dough, he tells you

Yes! we have-a no bananas!
We have-a no bananas today!
We've string beans and honions,
Cabbages and scallions
And all kinds of fruit, and say,
We have an old fashioned tomato,
A Long Island potato.
But, yes! We have no bananas!
We have no bananas today!

Business got so good with him,
He wrote home to say,
Send me Pete and Nick and Jim,
I need help right away.

When he got them in the store,
There was fun you bet.
Someone asked for sparrowgrass,
And then the whole quartet all answered

Yes! We've got no bananas,
We have no bananas today!
Our eggs are delicious
But they act suspicious.
They look like they passed away!
And if you try some of our spinach
We'll tell you you're finish.
But, yes! We have no bananas,
We have no bananas today!

[spoken]

You got strumberry pie?
Yes, I don't think we got strumberry pie.

You got coconut pie?
Yes, I don't think we got coconut pie.

Well, I'll have one cup of coffee.
We got no coffee.

Well, whattayou got?
I gotta banana.

Oh, you gotta banana!

Yes, we gotta no banana, no banana, no banana,
We gotta no bananas today. I tellayou no banana.

Eh, Marianna, you gotta no banana?
Why, this-a man, he is no believe what I say!
Now, whattya want mister,
You wanna buy 12 for a quarter?
Well, just-a vaminamoose!

I'm-a gonna call-a my daughter
Just vaminamoose.
Hey, Arianna, you gotta piana?
Yes? No? No, banana.
Yes, no? We got no banana today.
Take a walk. No bananas.

Not content with razzing the Greeks, here's a common variant (presumably of the speaking part, though I know this version only from text) that takes a poke at Britspeak:


The new English "clark":
Yes, we are very sorry to inform you
That we are entirely out of the fruit in question
The afore-mentioned vegetable
Bearing the cognomen "Banana".
We might induce you to accept a substitute less desirable,
But that is not the policy at this internationally famous green grocery.
I should say not. No no no no no no no.
But may we suggest that you sample our five o'clock tea
Which we feel certain will tempt your palate?
However we regret that after a diligent search
Of the premises
By our entire staff
We can positively affirm without fear of contradiction
That our raspberries are delicious; really delicious
Very delicious
But we have no bananas today.

Not yet enough! Snooks have been insufficiently cocked. Let's have a go at the Germans. Though, to be fair, I'd have to describe this as the Germans having a go at themselves, however inadvertently, since this is simply their version of the Banana song, the chorus of which is reproduced as:

Ausgerechnet Bananen,
Bananen verlangt sie von mir.
Sie tun nicht erfreuen,
Die schönsten Levkojen
Und Rosen aus Glanzpapier.
Und nicht einmal ein Oleander
Bringt uns zueinander.
Grad ausgerechnet Bananen,
Bananen verlangt sie von mir.

I don't read German, but it would appear that they got the "we have no" part, but entirely ignored the "yes". Could it possibly be that the Germans missed the joke?

Why, yes. Babelfish, which can always be relied upon to translate language into something frightening and surreal, renders the above as:

Calculated it requires bananas, bananas of me.
They do not do please, the most beautiful Levkojen and roses from glazed paper.
And a oleander does not even bring us to each other.
Degree calculated bananas, bananas requires it of me.

There is no doubt, since the English is run in the left-hand column and the German in the right, that this is somehow intended to be our old friend Yes! We Have No. In fact, it's a soulful song about a 'Don Juan' named Meier, who pines for a girl, who airily dismisses flowers and wants only bananas, which he does not have and can not get. O, bananas requires it of me!

And still I haven't offended enough ethnic groups.

According to the National Library of Canada's inestimable Virtual Gramophone site, there's an entirely different French Canadian song titled, with typical Gallic smugness:

Chez nous y a des bananes

Or, "Ha! We have got bananas up here, you stoopid yankee incompetents. Your mothers were hamsters and your fathers smelled of elderberries."

My goodness. What you can learn about the world from a Victrola record.

Back to the song list   º   On to the B side
Corrections gratefully accepted  º  victrola@fieldnotebook.com