A Parody of “Jambalaya (On the Bayou)” which is a song written and recorded by American country music singer Hank Williams that was first released in July 1952. It is Williams’ most recorded song. Named for a Creole and Cajun dish, jambalaya, it spawned numerous recordings and has since achieved popularity in several different music genres.
Executive Producers Don Caron and Jerry Pender
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LYRICS to JUMBO LIAR
by Freedom Toast
Good-bye Don, such a con, me-oh-my-o
Take the stand, here’s a plan, tell-a-lie-o
Down in polls, blame some trolls, me-oh-my-o
If you lose, find a ruse and a lie-o
Took a chance, JD Vance, for your Veep-o
But who found this young clown such a creep-o
Trims his beard, acts real weird me-oh-my-o
obsessed with cats, he’s gone bats, tells his lie-o
Jumbo liar, pants on fire, such a Dumbo
He chose Vance, yelling rants on my T V-o
Porno star, can’t shoot par, me-oh-my-o
When it’s you, all you do is tell your lie-o
Take girls round, bed them down, get them pregnant
Skirts should look like they’re hiding an eggplant
Quote the Psalms, til they’re moms, me-oh-my-o
Send a note, they can vote, tell them why-o
Jumbo liar, pants on fire, such a Dumbo
Every night, one sad sight on my T V-o
Porno star, can’t shoot par, me-oh-my-o
When it’s you, all you do is tell your lie-o
ABOUT THE SOURCE MUSIC
“Jambalaya (On the Bayou)” is a song written and recorded by American country music singer Hank Williams that was first released in July 1952. It is Williams’ most recorded song. Named for a Creole and Cajun dish, jambalaya, it spawned numerous recordings and has since achieved popularity in several different music genres.
In 2002, the 1952 Hank Williams recording of the song on MGM Records was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Williams began writing the song while listening to the Cajuns talk about food on the Hadacol Caravan bus. With a melody based on the Cajun song “Grand Texas”, some sources, including AllMusic, claim that the song was co-written by Williams and Moon Mullican, with Williams credited as sole author and Mullican receiving ongoing royalties. Williams’ biographer Colin Escott speculates that it is likely Mullican wrote at least some of the song and Hank’s music publisher Fred Rose paid him surreptitiously so that he wouldn’t have to split the publishing with Moon’s label King Records.
Williams’ song resembles “Grand Texas” in melody only. “Grand Texas” is a song about a lost love, a woman who left the singer to go with another man to “Big Texas”; “Jambalaya”, while maintaining a Cajun theme, is about life, parties and stereotypical food of Cajun cuisine. The narrator leaves to pole a pirogue down the shallow water of the bayou, to attend a party with his girlfriend Yvonne and her family. At the feast they have Cajun cuisine, notably Jambalaya, crawfish pie and filé gumbo, and drink liquor from fruit jars. Yvonne is his [ma] “chère amie”, which is Cajun French for “my dear (female) friend” or more likely to mean “my girlfriend”.
Williams recorded the song on June 13, 1952, his first recording session in six months, at Castle Studio in Nashville with backing provided by Jerry Rivers (fiddle), Don Helms (steel guitar), Chet Atkins (lead guitar), Chuck Wright (bass) and probably Ernie Newton (bass). The recording Williams made differs significantly from Mullican’s, which was released in the same month as Williams’ version but with a different order of verses and extra rhyming couplets.
Since the original melody of the song was from “Grand Texas”, the song is a staple of Cajun culture. However, although Williams kept a Louisiana theme, the song is not a true cajun song, which helped the song gain widespread popularity:
Released in July 1952, it reached number one on the U.S. country charts for fourteen non-consecutive weeks. Williams performed “Jambalaya” at the Louisiana Hayride as part of his “homecoming” in fall, 1952 (after being fired from the Grand Ole Opry). A live recording released as part of a series of Hayride performances includes outbursts of applause.[8] Another unreleased version is included in the 2017 CD set, At the Louisiana Hayride Tonight.
After Williams released his version, Cajuns recorded the song again using Cajun instruments. However, they used Williams’ lyrics translated into the Cajun French language. “Jambalaya” remains one of Hank Williams’ most popular songs today. International, translated or derived versions exist at least in Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, Italian, Polish, German, Spanish, Estonian and Swedish.