Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)

"Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)"
Single by Harry Belafonte
from the album Calypso
LanguageJamaican Patois
B-side"Star-O"
Released1956
Recorded1955
StudioGrand Ballroom, Webster Hall, New York City
Genre
Length3:02
LabelRCA Victor
Songwriter(s)Traditional, arranged: Harry Belafonte, William Attaway, Lord Burgess
Harry Belafonte singles chronology
"Mary's Boy Child"
(1954)
"Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)"
(1956)
"Hold 'Em Joe"
(1957)
Official audio
"Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" on YouTube
"The Banana Boat Song"
Single by The Tarriers
from the album The Tarriers
LanguageJamaican Patois
B-side"No Hidin' Place"
Released1956
Length2:58
LabelGlory Records
Songwriter(s)Alan Arkin, Bob Carey, Erik Darling
The Tarriers singles chronology
"The Banana Boat Song"
(1956)
"Cindy, Oh Cindy"
(1956)
Harry Belafonte, Almanac, 18 February 1954

"Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" is a traditional Jamaican folk song. The song has mento influences, but it is commonly classified as an example of the better known calypso music.

It is a call and response work song, from the point of view of dock workers working the night shift loading bananas onto ships. The lyrics describe how daylight has come, their shift is over, and they want their work to be counted up so that they can go home.

The best-known version was released by American singer Harry Belafonte in 1956 (originally titled "Banana Boat (Day-O)") and later became one of his signature songs. That same year the Tarriers released an alternative version that incorporated the chorus of another Jamaican call and response folk song, "Hill and Gully Rider". Both versions became simultaneously popular the following year, placing 5th and 6th on the 20 February 1957, US Top 40 Singles chart.[2] The Tarriers version was covered multiple times in 1956 and 1957, including by the Fontane Sisters, Sarah Vaughan, Steve Lawrence, and Shirley Bassey, all of whom charted in the top 40 in their respective countries.[3]

Belafonte described "Day-O" as "a song about struggle, about black people in a colonized life doing the most grueling work," in a 2011 interview with Gwen Ifill on PBS NewsHour. He said, "I took that song and honed it into an anthem that the world loved."

  1. ^ Stanley, Bob (2022). "Whipped Cream and Other Delights: Adventures in Beatleland". Let's Do It - The Birth of Pop Music: A History. New York. p. 564.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ "All US Top 40 Singles For 1957". Top40Weekly.com. 30 November 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2022.
  3. ^ Petrusich, Amanda (22 February 2017). "Harry Belafonte and the Social Power of Song". The New Yorker. Condé Nast. Retrieved 22 December 2021.