Eartha Kitt c/d?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00000JCN9

She's also on one of the Nat King Cole episodes that BET Jazz rotates on Tuesdays. They don't seem to have many (and the show wasn't on that long in the first place), so you can usually catch her every month or six weeks or so.

http://s43.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=090T9B4QBN5R21PV84MZ3FMLCV

"Like something that seeks its level
I want to go to the devil"

Hippocamus has a great mp3 up of Eartha doing “Shalom Aleichem” http://www.hippocampusmusic.com/index.php?p=35

recently picked up the Where Is My Man 12" and have just listened to it like 14 times in a row.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=abMx3EoXCr0

!

http://24.media.tumblr.com/ffa2bfce81d78ac9dc39f6344e025b26/tumblr_mhjnegdl7a1r9qbgqo1_500.jpg

Details.

http://blackcontemporaryart.tumblr.com/post/91511586957/painter-painting-in-our-land-pictures-of-only

http://31.media.tumblr.com/9c37fdd5294698442af55354943e8eca/tumblr_n7znn6SK2N1te8ujco1_250.gif

http://youtu.be/cnPga2-sfkY

haha whoops that's less cool without the tryptich

http://31.media.tumblr.com/9c37fdd5294698442af55354943e8eca/tumblr_n7znn6SK2N1te8ujco1_250.gif
http://37.media.tumblr.com/9df56bf36a3149d9efb32daa852c27e7/tumblr_n7znn6SK2N1te8ujco2_250.gif
http://38.media.tumblr.com/f43dde77b8665c97f1eebfb09ae13bd4/tumblr_n7znn6SK2N1te8ujco3_250.gif

hullo ilx i need yr COLLECTIVE LANGUAGE SKILLS (for i have none to speak of)

so here are the words to eartha kitt’s “mademoiselle kitt”

this is courtesy genius dot com so they may not all be correct — some of it is spanish, some english, some anglified french (paree, mamzelle) but some (marked in bold) i can't identify:

(also I am not sure what this б shd actually be… )

Yo soy asocial
Soy intellectuel y chic
Yo fui anuyeor
Conozco pro dual Paree
Soy artista mundial
Yo no diga mбs cha cha
Yo que ondiga baile
El French Can Can…
Como caboin pro dual
Mi Congo
Y al vorbel a solal
Mi ande llama mamzel
Yo me llama Ersa
Pero Ersa la mбs
Y sen y ascul vido
Quen cu baducui sucugi
Fui la grande mademoiselle
Que blonda sayal Paree
Y as tona li u yes yes, oui oui
Yo soy mamzel, pero mamzel Ersa
Yo soy mamzel, pero mamzel Ersa
Do-it-yourself … Kitt!

and in case the trasncription is just too daft to decode here's the song itself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SpB2Nk_vtY

The genius transcription is clearly some program that's just picking up sounds, there are a lot of mistakes in there. I've tried to transcribe a better version, sadly most of the bits you have in bold I also couldn't make out (though I'm pretty sure she mentions tango, not the Congo). Hopefully an ILXor whose Spanish is not just grandfathered in through knowing Portuguese can improve on my attempt.

Yo soy negra social
Soy intelectual y chic
Yo fui a Nueva Yor
Consosco Broadway, Paris

Soy artista mundial
Yo no digo más - cha cha
Yo, que un dia bailei
El french can can

????
????
Al vuelver la sola
Mi han de llamar dam'sell

Yo me llamo Eartha
Pero Eartha la más
??? olvido
Que en Cuba yo fui ????

Fui la grande mademoiselle
???? Paris
Y estoy en Hollywood, yes yes, oui oui
Yo soy mam'sel, pero mam'sel Eartha
Yo soy mam'sel, pero mam'sel Eartha
Do it yourself - Kitt

And a stab at translation:

I am a black socialite
Intelectual and chic
I went to New York
I know Broadway, Paris

I am a world artist
And I won't say more - cha cha*
I, who one day danced
The French can can

???
???
Coming back alone
They are going to call me mam'sel

My name is Eartha
But Eartha the most
???? forget
That in Cuba I was ???

I was at the great mademoiselle
??? Paris
I'm in Hollywood, yes yes, oui oui
I am mam'sel, but mam'sel Eartha
I am mam'sel, but mam'sel Eartha
Do it yourself - Kitt

I think the Cuba bit is something like "y se me has olvidado, que en Cuba yo fui" and then a word I can't make out, but which sounds orisha-adjacent? Basically she's saying "if you've forgotten, I used to be known as this in Cuba".

oh the stray * is: I'm not sure if she's saying "and that's all I'm saying - cha cha!" or "and I am no longer saying - cha cha", meaning she's leaving her latin roots as exemplified by the cha cha cha

ooh thank you, this is an excellent start

a friend on bsky found another (better) transcription on a russian site: https://www.amalgama-lab.com/songs/e/eartha_kitt/mademoiselle_kitt.html

tho as they noted it misses something you got right: that "Y as tona li u yes yes, oui oui" is more likely to be be "Y estoy en Hollywood, yes yes, oui oui"

also the second "pro dual" is presumably also "broadway"

and it suggests "bongo" for congo/tango

so this (courtesy putin)

Como caboin pro dual
Mi Congo
Y al vorbel a solal
Mi ande llama mamzel

is

Cómo acabó Broadway
Mi bongó
Y ar vorvé al solá
Mi ande llama mamzel

which translates as

That's how I ended up on Broadway
With my bongo.
I'm the only one,
My name is mamzel

and

Y sen y ascul vido
Quen cu baducui sucugi
Fui la grande mademoiselle
Que blonda sayal Paree

is

Y señá esculpido
Que en Cuba yo fui su cugi
Fui la grande mademoiselle
En blondas allá en Paree

which translates as

With a chiseled figure,
Which was so hot in Cuba.
I was the greatest mamzel
Among blondes in Paris

translation in full (via daniel and the russian transcript and my bsky pal):

I am from the black community,
I am intellectual and chic
I have been to New York
I have seen Broadway, Paris

I am a world-class artist,
And that's all I say (cha cha cha!)
I am the one who danced
French can-can

That's how I ended up on Broadway

With my bongo

I'm the only one

My name is mamzel

My name is Eartha

But Eartha the most

With a chiseled figure,
Which was so hot in Cuba

I was the greatest mademoiselle

Among blondes in Paris
I'm in Hollywood, yes yes, oui oui

I am mamzel, but mamzel Eartha

I am mamzel, but mamzel Eartha…

Do-It-Yourself … Kitt!

adding two things: in this song she always pronounces it EHR-SA!

and it's a cover* of this cuban song (a track on a mini-LP released the previous year), except with eartha's name and attributes substituted for mesie julian's ("mesie" = monsieur in local lingo)

kitt performed residencies in cuba in the 50s and wd have heard bola de nieve all the time: he was a big cuban star (in his "world music" book joe boyd mentions them both a couple of sentences apart)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_MNgGlMnuw

*asterisk bcz i was going to add that you do sometimes find the internet claiming that the bola de nieve version is the cover-rewrite (of kitt's version), im going to say wrongly

Re: black community/black socialite, the literal translation is "a social black woman". Maybe there was some sort of regime in Cuba at the time where someone could be "socially black"? The combination of words doesn't remind me of anything concrete, and google doesn't find anything either - I went for socialite because it fits in with calling yrself chic and intelectual.

There's some subtelties here as well - "yo, que un dia bailei" is like "I, who once danced", so it's not just listing her various phases, it's more like "I, who once danced the French can can, am now a world artist, can you believe it?". With "como acabei en Broadway", I think she's more going for a rhetorical question - "how did I end up on Broadway?" - rather than saying it was her French can can that brought her there.

A lot of the words are far more easy to catch in the Bola de Nieve version - a stagename which translates to "snowball" :/

cheers daniel, yes to all that i think -- it's not exactly a surprise that an eartha song about herself, about who she was and how she was seen, is so fully strung with amused irony, but that's definitely what's going on here

i dont know enough abt the politics of racial etiquette in 50s cuba to comment helpfully on the “negra“ question: everything i know abt it i learned from joe boyd's book tbh

here he is on that nickname: "In the early 30s, [Rita Montaner] hired a dark-skinned piano accompanist named Ignacio Villa… He soon graduated to becoming Rita's opening act, singing all nanner of parlour songs. ('I would have liked to sing opera, but I have the voice of a mango-seller.') Montaner gave him a ridiculously racist stage name that he eventually came to view as a stroke of good fortune"