by Carl Nelson

This week we bring you Mike Faltesek as our guest DJ.  Mike has been interviewed here in the past, teaches all over the world, and is covered in a variety of tattoos.

Song: Egyptian Ella
Artist: Fats Waller
Album: The Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 2: A Handful Of Keys
Composer: Walter Doyle 1931

I have really been digging on this song lately, and almost any version of it.  Fats is the man, so I have picked his version which is really his playing with the Ted Lewis & His Orchestra and also features Mugsy Spanier.  There are some modern bands that like to kick it with this song as well.  Two of my favorites are Mora’s Modern Rhythmists and The Loose Marbles.

The song was written by Walter Doyle in 1931 and even until 1945, the lyrics were too suggestive to be included in the movie “Bring On the Girls” and were rewritten.  Here are the original lyrics to the first verse and chorus:

Ella was a dancing girl who started getting fat
Every day saw three more pounds on Ella
Until one day she found she’d lost her job because of that
And to make it worse, she’d lost her fella
She took a trip to Egypt to forget
And she made such a hit that she’s there yet …

So if you hear of a gal who can quake and shake
‘Till it makes you think of a nervous snake
They’re speakin’ … of Egyptian Ella
She weighs two-twenty but that’s O.K.
They like ‘em plenty down there that way
She has the love … of every fella
And when she shakes and when she starts
Down by the River Nile
The boys all take their old sweet-hearts
And throw them to the crocodiles
And every sheik in the audience
Jumps up and yells that “she’s immense!”
They’re cheering for Egyptian Ella.

There are a few things I love about this song.  For starters, it has a hard driving rhythm that makes you pat your foot.  The song is in a minor key, which gives it that ever so wonderful dark kind of feeling to it.  To make it sound even darker and dissonant, the chorus starts out with a chromatic descent, walking down a half step from the tonic, all the way a half step below the perfect 5th and then back up to the fifth before it resolves itself back to the tonic.  That, plus the minor key signature really helps create this steadily moving, pushing, dissonant, dirty feeling.  This is the type of song that makes you want to jump up and shout out, “mercy!”.

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You can find this song for sale on Amazon.com.

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