Minnie the Moocher

by Cab Calloway

Top hit from: 29.03 to 04.04.1931

"Minnie the Moocher" is a jazz song first recorded in 1931 by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, selling over 1 million copies. "Minnie the Moocher" is most famous for its nonsensical ad libbed ("scat") lyrics (for example, "Hi De Hi De Hi De Hi"). In performances, Calloway would have the audience participate by repeating each scat phrase in a form of call and response. Eventually Calloway's phrases would become so long and complex that the audience would laugh at their own failed attempts to repeat them.
"Minnie the Moocher" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.
The song is based both musically and lyrically on Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon's 1927 "Willie the Weeper" (Bette Davis sings this version in The Cabin in the Cotton). The lyrics are heavily laden with drug references. The character "Smokey" is described as "cokey" meaning a user of cocaine; the phrase "kicking the gong around" was a slang reference to smoking opium. It was followed two years later by Lonnie Johnson's "Winnie the Wailer".
Calloway also wrote an extended version, adding verses which describe Minnie and Smokey going to jail; Minnie pays Smokey's bail, but he abandons her there. Another verse describes

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Lyrics

Songwriters: Calloway, C; Caskill, C; Mills, I;



Folks, here's a story about Minnie the Moocher
She was a red hot hoochie-koocher
She was the roughest, toughest frail
But Minnie had a heart as big as a whale

Hidee hidee hidee hi
Oh oh oh oh
Hee dee hee dee hee dee hee
Yeah yeah yeah yeah

She messed around with a bloke named Smoky
She loved him though he was cokey
He took her down to Chinatown
And he showed her how to kick the gong around

Hidee hidee hidee hi
Oh oh oh oh
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Oh ho ho ho

She had a dream about the King of Sweden
He gave her things that she was needin'
He gave her a home built of gold and steel
A diamond car with platinum wheels

Hidee hidee hidee hidee hidee hidee hi
Hodee hodee hodee hodee hodee oh
Skeedle a booka diki biki skeedly beeka gookity woop
A booriki booriki booriki Hoy

He gave her his townhouse and his racing horses
Each meal she ate was a dozen courses
She had a million dollars worth of nickels and dimes
She sat around and counted them all a million times

Hidee hidee hidee hi
Hooh whoaa oh oh whoa
Hidee hidee hidee hi

Poor Min, Poor Min, Poor Min



these lyrics are last corrected by vdrlng011