I am reading No Good Deeds by Laura Lippman at the moment and in one part, one of the characters starts (in her head) singing snippets of "Jock-a-mo". So, therefore, I have had it stuck in my head all day. I remember for some sort of talent show in middle school acting out verses of the song with some friends, but do not currently recall much of it. (Interestingly, I still recall the entire melody to my high school song, and some of the words. Just something I discovered in another wandering conversation this weekend.)
So, back to "Jock-a-mo", which Wikipedia tells me was also called "Iko Iko" in some iterations. I started wondering what the rest of the words were, and did "iko iko" mean something or were they just nonsense words. And so, clearly, I looked it up. What did I do before the innertubes? Apparently the story is of two parades colliding - so that's what the flag boys were doing! And there is some French Creole and some Indian chants thrown in there.
This link lists a number of variations on the lyrics, the song has been much covered, and while it was written in the sixties, has already evolved quite a bit. Just thought I'd share the fruits of my "research".
