From the early talkie “Broadway Babies,” 1929
Words by Al Bryan
Music by George W. Meyer
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
1. Down in Banana land, I heard a jungle band playing
I watched the jungle beaux
Dressed in their jungle clothes, swaying
Dancing is their chief delight, what a wonderful place
How they sing and dance all night, they’re the happiest race
If you ever heard the Jig-a-loo
You’d go wild and start to dance it, too
Refrain:
Here’s the dance the lovers do
Every night in the Cariboo
It’s the Jig, Jig, Jig-a-loo
It’s the Jig, Jig, Jig-a-loo
Every evening in the year
Here’s the tune that you’ll always hear
It’s the Jig, Jig, Jig-a-loo
It’s the Jig, Jig, Jig-a-loo
It has a rhythm they can’t do without
It lingers with ’em until all the lights go out
Lovers, when they wed in June
Sing this tune on their honeymoon
It’s the Jig, Jig, Jig-a-loo
It’s the Jig, Jig, Jig-a-loo
2. They have a rhythmic swing
To everything they sing, O boy!
And how those jungle vamps
Do shake their jungle champs, O joy!
They have “it” and “those” and “these”
They’ve got nothing else “but”
They can tremble like the trees
Even grandmothers strut
But the rhythmic tune that sticks to you
Is the tantalizing Jig-a-loo