Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song" (Day-O)

About

The Banana Boat Song (Day-O), also known by its lyrics Work All Night On A Drink Of Rum, 6 Foot 7 Foot 8 Foot Bunch and Tally Me Banana, is a traditional Jamaican work song about loading bananas onto a boat famously covered by Harry Belafonte in 1956. Belafonte's version started gaining significance in meme culture in relation to monkeys, particularly in 2021.

Origin

"The Banana Boat Song" is a traditional Jamaican work song and was sung by dockworkers while loading bananas onto shipping boats in the 1950s. It was first recorded by Edric Connor in 1952 for the album Songs From Jamaica (shown below).

Work all night on a drink of rum
(Daylight come and we want go home)
Stack banana 'til the morning come
(Daylight come and we want go home)
Come Mister tally man, tally me banana
(Daylight come and we want go home)
Come Mister tally man, tally me banana
(Daylight come and we want go home)

Jamaican-American singer Harry Belafonte recorded a version of the song in 1956, becoming the most popular version and reaching No. 5 on the Billboard charts in 1957 (shown below).

Spread

In 1978,^[6] Belafonte appeared on the Muppets to perform the song (shown below).

Belafonte's version of "Day-O" notably appears in the 1988 film Beetlejuice, in a scene where a table of characters sing and perform to it (shown below).

Lyric Videos

On May 24th, 2021, YouTuber^[1] UnEnglish posted a lyric video for the song displaying the text in top and bottom format like on an image macro, using footage of monkeys throughout, garnering over 13,500 views in two months (shown below). The video was reuploaded by YouTuber^[2] abraham carino on May 26th, garnering over 1.3 million views in a comparable span of time.

On June 1st, YouTuber^[3] The God Towel uploaded an extended version of the video, garnering over 60,000 views in a month (shown below, left). These videos inspired a number of other YouTubers to create lyric videos set to the song. For example, on June 14th, YouTuber^[4] Generous Crook posted a version using capybara footage, originally posted to Instagram^[5] page @chadcapy on June 7th (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References