"There's a great big mystery, and it sure is worryin' me. This diddie wa diddie, this diddie wa diddie.
I wish somebody would tell me what
diddie wa diddie means".
Well it's a fair question I suppose, and it's heartening to know that Blind Blake was asking it back in the 1920's, many years before I first puzzled over 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy' - what on EARTH was it all about? According to some reports, 'Diddy Wa' is another euphemism for that age old pastime of sex, just the way the term 'rock & roll' is often claimed to be. Another spin locates 'Diddy Wa' in a mythical shangri la or 'Big Rock Candy Mountain' where life is lazy, food is free and "there ain't no fields to plough".* You can hear this longing in Bo Diddley's own 'Diddy Wah Diddy' (from 1955, memorably covered by Captain Beefheart in 1966): "Ain't no town, ain't no city, Lord, how they love in Diddy Wah Diddy)".** Well there's some background to it anyway.
Written in 1963, 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy' post dates all this of course, but writers Barry and Greenwich must have been savvy enough to at least be aware of the origins and connotations of the phrase (it's not something they were likely to have made up on the spot). "There she was just a walkin' down the street singing 'Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do'" - their take suggest sex on legs interpretation, but there's a nonsense innocence to the piece that's a world apart from the raw sexuality of Blind Blake.
Of course, Manfred Mann's single is (yet another) cover version - 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy' was originally recorded the previous year by the (mostly) female American r&b band The Exciters, and this earlier version whips up a frothy concoction of juke box jive that's infectious in its joyous celebration of teenage love topped with a lead vocal from Brenda Reid that can barely contain its excitement. Manfred Mann's own approach (after switching all the 'he's to 'she's) is to straitjacket the tune in an organ led arrangement and stitch it up with a plodding drum beat that sucks the life out of the song like a vampire sucking a vein but with none of the implied sexiness.
Paul Jones is without doubt an r&b singer of note, but his mouthy lead on this is far too respectful and serious to let any joy in - Reid and her sisters augmented the lyrics with pin sharp whoops and yeahs that spark as spontaneous even if they weren't, but Jones walks the line of the song with the care of a stranger in unfamiliar territory anxious not to put a foot wrong. And that's its downfall - by nobody here stepping off piste by a single foot, all that's left is a basic tune and lyrics reduced to the call and response plod of an army march song and with all the associated emotion. 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy' was never presented as a major statement of art, but neither is it meant to be as boring as this. By any interpretation of the phrase.
* With a nod to Walter Shenson's 'Old Rivers', itself a riff on the diddy wa as rock candy mountain idea:
I wish somebody would tell me what
diddie wa diddie means".
Well it's a fair question I suppose, and it's heartening to know that Blind Blake was asking it back in the 1920's, many years before I first puzzled over 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy' - what on EARTH was it all about? According to some reports, 'Diddy Wa' is another euphemism for that age old pastime of sex, just the way the term 'rock & roll' is often claimed to be. Another spin locates 'Diddy Wa' in a mythical shangri la or 'Big Rock Candy Mountain' where life is lazy, food is free and "there ain't no fields to plough".* You can hear this longing in Bo Diddley's own 'Diddy Wah Diddy' (from 1955, memorably covered by Captain Beefheart in 1966): "Ain't no town, ain't no city, Lord, how they love in Diddy Wah Diddy)".** Well there's some background to it anyway.
Written in 1963, 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy' post dates all this of course, but writers Barry and Greenwich must have been savvy enough to at least be aware of the origins and connotations of the phrase (it's not something they were likely to have made up on the spot). "There she was just a walkin' down the street singing 'Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do'" - their take suggest sex on legs interpretation, but there's a nonsense innocence to the piece that's a world apart from the raw sexuality of Blind Blake.
Of course, Manfred Mann's single is (yet another) cover version - 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy' was originally recorded the previous year by the (mostly) female American r&b band The Exciters, and this earlier version whips up a frothy concoction of juke box jive that's infectious in its joyous celebration of teenage love topped with a lead vocal from Brenda Reid that can barely contain its excitement. Manfred Mann's own approach (after switching all the 'he's to 'she's) is to straitjacket the tune in an organ led arrangement and stitch it up with a plodding drum beat that sucks the life out of the song like a vampire sucking a vein but with none of the implied sexiness.
Paul Jones is without doubt an r&b singer of note, but his mouthy lead on this is far too respectful and serious to let any joy in - Reid and her sisters augmented the lyrics with pin sharp whoops and yeahs that spark as spontaneous even if they weren't, but Jones walks the line of the song with the care of a stranger in unfamiliar territory anxious not to put a foot wrong. And that's its downfall - by nobody here stepping off piste by a single foot, all that's left is a basic tune and lyrics reduced to the call and response plod of an army march song and with all the associated emotion. 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy' was never presented as a major statement of art, but neither is it meant to be as boring as this. By any interpretation of the phrase.
* With a nod to Walter Shenson's 'Old Rivers', itself a riff on the diddy wa as rock candy mountain idea:
"He'd say, one of these days I'm gonna climb that mountain
Walk up there among the clouds
Where the cotton's high, and the corn's a-growin'
And there ain't no fields to plough".
** B. A. Botkin, in A Treasury of Southern Folklore. Under the heading, Mythical Places of the Florida Negro, the following definition is presented for the phrase Diddie Wa Diddie (Diddy-Wah-Diddy).
"This is the largest and best known of the Negro mythical places. Its geography is that it is "way off somewhere." It is reached by a road that curves so much that a mule pulling a wagon-load of fodder can eat off the back of the wagon as he goes. It is a place of no work and no worry for man and beast. A very restful place where even the curbstones are good sitting-chairs. The food is even already cooked. If a traveller is hungry all he needs do is to sit down on the curbstone and wait and soon he will hear something hollering "Eat me! Eat me! Eat me!" and a big baked chicken will come along with a knife and a fork stuck in its sides. He can eat all he wants and let the chicken go on to the next on that needs something to eat. By that time a big deep sweet potato pie is pushing and shoving to get in front of the traveller with a knife all stuck up in the middle of it so he just cuts a piece off of that and so on until he finishes his snack. Nobody can ever eat it all up. No matter how much you eat it grows that much faster. It is said "Everybody would live in Diddy-Wah-Diddy if it wasn't so hard to find and so hard to get to after you even know the way." Everything is on a large scale there. Even the dogs can stand flat-footed and lick the crumbs off heaven's table. The biggest man there is known as the Moon-Regulator because he reaches up and starts and stops it at his convenience. That is why there are some dark nights when the moon does not shine at all. He did not feel like putting it out that night".
Walk up there among the clouds
Where the cotton's high, and the corn's a-growin'
And there ain't no fields to plough".
** B. A. Botkin, in A Treasury of Southern Folklore. Under the heading, Mythical Places of the Florida Negro, the following definition is presented for the phrase Diddie Wa Diddie (Diddy-Wah-Diddy).
"This is the largest and best known of the Negro mythical places. Its geography is that it is "way off somewhere." It is reached by a road that curves so much that a mule pulling a wagon-load of fodder can eat off the back of the wagon as he goes. It is a place of no work and no worry for man and beast. A very restful place where even the curbstones are good sitting-chairs. The food is even already cooked. If a traveller is hungry all he needs do is to sit down on the curbstone and wait and soon he will hear something hollering "Eat me! Eat me! Eat me!" and a big baked chicken will come along with a knife and a fork stuck in its sides. He can eat all he wants and let the chicken go on to the next on that needs something to eat. By that time a big deep sweet potato pie is pushing and shoving to get in front of the traveller with a knife all stuck up in the middle of it so he just cuts a piece off of that and so on until he finishes his snack. Nobody can ever eat it all up. No matter how much you eat it grows that much faster. It is said "Everybody would live in Diddy-Wah-Diddy if it wasn't so hard to find and so hard to get to after you even know the way." Everything is on a large scale there. Even the dogs can stand flat-footed and lick the crumbs off heaven's table. The biggest man there is known as the Moon-Regulator because he reaches up and starts and stops it at his convenience. That is why there are some dark nights when the moon does not shine at all. He did not feel like putting it out that night".
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