Is It Time for a Mambo No. 5 Revival?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Gasoline prices are rising, people are fighting, etc. The return of Mambo No. 5 may be the music Therapy Buddy* to make us forget our social woes.

I submit to you:
Ladies and gentlemen
This is Mambo number 5

One, two, three, four, five
Everybody in the car, so come on let's ride
To the liquor store around the corner
The boys say they want some gin and juice
But I really don't wanna
Beer bust like I had last week
I must stay deep 'cause talk is cheap
I like Angela, Pamela, Sandra and Rita
And as I continue you know they're getting sweeter
So what can I do? I really beg you, my Lord
To me flirting is just like a sport
Anything fly, it's all good let me dump it
Please set in the trumpet

A little bit of Monica in my life
A little bit of Erica by my side
A little bit of Rita's all I need
A little bit of Tina's what I see
A little bit of Sandra in the sun
A little bit of Mary all night long
A little bit of Jessica here I am
A little bit of you makes me your man

Mambo number 5 !

Jump up and down go and move it all around
Shake your head to the sound
Put your hands on the ground
Take one step left and one step right
One to the front and one to the side
Clap your hands once and clap your hands twice
And if it looks like this then you're doing it right

Trumpet !
The trumpet !
Mambo number 5 !
(heh heh heh ha)

I do all to
Fall in love with a girl like you
'Cause you can't run and you can't hide
You and me gonna touch the sky

Mambo number 5 !

* Therapy Buddy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xMjk6X__9c

― Joe (Joe), Friday, 12 May 2006 11:32 (nineteen years ago)

I'm pretty sure that a bartender at a shitty bar near Wrigley Field put Mambo Number 5 on and played it repeatedly to make my friends and I leave one afternoon.

Serious question: what is Lou Bega doing right now?

― joygoat (joygoat), Friday, 12 May 2006 11:55 (nineteen years ago)

Heroin?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 12 May 2006 11:56 (nineteen years ago)

LouBega.com has a note from 2005 about a new album being on the way.
"After the world wide hype about me in the years 1999-2002, I wanted to get back to a simple and natural way of approaching things."

Interestingly, the site defaults to German language.

I'm sure we're all on pins and needles.

― Øystein (Øystein), Friday, 12 May 2006 12:00 (nineteen years ago)

no.

― AaronK (AaronK), Friday, 12 May 2006 12:11 (nineteen years ago)

Interestingly, the site defaults to German language.
-- Øystein
Iirc Lou Bega is German.

― jimnaseum wastes the taxpayer's money, Friday, 12 May 2006 12:27 (nineteen years ago)

I think yes

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 12 May 2006 12:36 (nineteen years ago)

Not enough time has passed to even joke about such things.

― Edward III (edward iii), Friday, 12 May 2006 12:39 (nineteen years ago)

i associate this song strongly with the time i was struggling with a bout of acid reflux disorder. the two may be related. data is inconclusive.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Friday, 12 May 2006 13:16 (nineteen years ago)

Still like the Xavier Cugat version, but not this.

― Daniel Peterson (polkaholic), Friday, 12 May 2006 13:33 (nineteen years ago)

No, it's not.

― pleased to mitya (mitya), Friday, 12 May 2006 13:50 (nineteen years ago)

you'd be fine w/ it if he sang it in german

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 12 May 2006 13:52 (nineteen years ago)

Ein bisschen Monica in mein Leben
Ein bisschen Erica von mir Seit'
Ein bisschen Rita braucht alle ich
Ein bisschen Tina was seh' ich
Ein bisschen Sandra in der Sonne
Ein bisschen Mary ganz Nacht lang
Ein bisschen Jessica hier ich bin
Ein bisschen von du macht mich dein' Mann.

Nah, still kind of stupid.

― brilliant young and angsty (thatguy), Friday, 12 May 2006 14:50 (nineteen years ago)

look, it's the principle

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 12 May 2006 14:50 (nineteen years ago)

we'd all be singing it in German if it wasn't for those damn Yankees

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 12 May 2006 14:57 (nineteen years ago)

see, i associate this song w/ the period of Sept. 1999-Feb. 2000 where i had graduated from school, moved back home to find a job, didn't find it, kept working in the arcade @ the mall, going out every night and gettin drunk, and having to hear this song 3-4 times a night in ANY bar...
needless to say, i hate this song as it reminds me of a time i'd rather forget.

― eedd, Friday, 12 May 2006 15:01 (nineteen years ago)

If possible, I think it achieved even more radio saturation in Germany than in the US. Between Mambo no. 5, Blue, Cher warbling about believing in love and the cover of The Last Unicorn theme song, I consider myself aurally scarred by a summer in Germany.

― patita (patita), Friday, 12 May 2006 15:03 (nineteen years ago)

It's classic in that scene in The Royle Family.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Friday, 12 May 2006 15:07 (nineteen years ago)

I say yes, too! I love his smoky rasp.

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 12 May 2006 15:44 (nineteen years ago)

Man, fuck this Lou Bega car-commercial shit. "Mambo No. 5" was, is, and ever shall be a Perez Prado song to me. And a great one.

― Jason Toon (Jason Toon), Friday, 12 May 2006 15:49 (nineteen years ago)

"It's classic in that scene in The Royle Family."

it got a good airing on The Simpsons too, and i liked it when Steve Carrell sang it with new lyrics on The (US) Office.

― Chairman Doinel (Charles McCain), Friday, 12 May 2006 16:30 (nineteen years ago)

This one is worth picking up if you ever find it
http://www.317x.com/albums/p/perezprado6/card.html

― bendy (bendy), Friday, 12 May 2006 17:36 (nineteen years ago)

nine months pass...

I have a question related to the Perez Prado original. One of my favorite films, 'Murmur of the Heart', has a scene in a jazz bar where Mambo no. 5 is playing, but it is a bit slower, a bit heavier on the bassoon blasts and has more "HUH!"s. The interjections make me think that is still Prado perfoming it. Are there several studio versions of the song? Is there anyone who covered it at the time (the film was shot in the early 70s but is set in 1954)?

― baaderonixx, Monday, 5 March 2007 15:33 (nineteen years ago)

I like Angela, Pamela, Sandra and Rita
And as I continue you know they're getting sweeter

1) There's a lot of names in this song
2) Angela gets mentioned once, and is the first name mentioned.
3) And as I continue you know they're getting sweeter so Angela aint much, I guess...

― Mark G, Monday, 5 March 2007 15:36 (nineteen years ago)

Bruce Forsyth does quite a fetching version of the tune.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 5 March 2007 15:50 (nineteen years ago)

i read that as "retching"..

then as "felching".

― grimly fiendish, Monday, 5 March 2007 18:17 (nineteen years ago)

A LITTLE BIT OF PAAAAAAAM ALL NIGHT LONG
A LITTLE BIT OF ANGELA WITH THE THING

― jamescobo, Monday, 5 March 2007 18:22 (nineteen years ago)

Someone for the love of God go back in time and kill this song.

― HI DERE, Monday, 5 March 2007 18:23 (nineteen years ago)

Supposedly, the Perez Perado version was one of the original Hip-Hop breaks pre-rap record, which may've got the ball rolling for this versions existance.

― PappaWheelie V, Monday, 5 March 2007 18:46 (nineteen years ago)

"A little bit of you makes me your man"

This line has always baffled me. Does he mean female ejaculate?

― nickalicious, Monday, 5 March 2007 19:44 (nineteen years ago)

What the fuck would make you think that?

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Monday, 5 March 2007 20:21 (nineteen years ago)

the only good thing about this song is the Matrix video mashup

― Curt1s Stephens, Monday, 5 March 2007 20:22 (nineteen years ago)

Thanks you for destroying my day by reminding me of this gruesome summer hit that was all but superseded in my mind.

― Geir Hongro, Monday, 5 March 2007 20:46 (nineteen years ago)

haha

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 5 March 2007 20:49 (nineteen years ago)

I'm surprised by the level of hate for this song.

― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 10:15 (nineteen years ago)

this song is great, nu-ILM in hating fun shockah

― jabba hands, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 10:51 (nineteen years ago)

Steven Stapleton explains his new-found interest in rhythm, which has manifested itself in the last couple of Nurse LPs, Rock'n'Roll Station and Who Can I Turn To Stereo?, as being due to a fascination with a mambo musician by the name of Perez Prado; "I heard him for the first time in my life about 4 years ago and was obsessed with him for years. I was frantically collecting any Perez Prado material - it's heavily rhythmic and that's what I've spent the last 3 years listening to and it's certainly influenced my music."

― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 11:15 (nineteen years ago)

Has anyone ever seen Steven Nurse With Wound Stapleton and Lex in the same place at the same time?

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 11:32 (nineteen years ago)

"hating fun" the last futile charge of the flailing man

― gershy, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:33 (nineteen years ago)

Trumpet !
The trumpet !

― Drooone, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 20:49 (nineteen years ago)

Artie Ziff;"I was livin' large with Newt Gingrich, Janeane Garofalo, and Scottie Pippen." (or whatever it was)

― C. Grisso/McCain, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 21:12 (nineteen years ago)

I think yes

― RJG, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 21:32 (nineteen years ago)

seven months pass...

THE TRUMPET

― Dom Passantino, Monday, 8 October 2007 21:20 (eighteen years ago)

I will always love this song.

You've got to like a few of those songs that everybody else hates, but you love yet cannot intellectually defend. Otherwise, you are straight disconnected from the streets.

I would like to use it as my ringtone, but my girlfriend might not like that.

― Romeo Jones, Monday, 8 October 2007 21:30 (eighteen years ago)

My dad loves this song, and further thought that Lou Bega had a really "original sound" and thought he would stick around for a long time.

For some context, his favorite song of all time is that one that goes "I don't wanna work, I just wanna bang on the drum all day" and his favorite act of all time is ZZ Top.

― filthy dylan, Monday, 8 October 2007 21:31 (eighteen years ago)

Who goes round intellectually defending songs?

― Noodle Vague, Monday, 8 October 2007 21:32 (eighteen years ago)

hallo ILM

― ledge, Monday, 8 October 2007 21:40 (eighteen years ago)

This damn song takes me right back to when I was working as a painter and decorator, magnolia satin finish paint, rollers and everything. Back them it seemed like it was played on the radio four times an hour, alternating with "Livin' La Vida Loca", and after several weeks of "a little blah-di-blah" followed by "duh duh duh duhduh livin' la vida blah blah", I never want to hear either song again!

― snoball, Monday, 8 October 2007 21:41 (eighteen years ago)

I think yes

― RJG, Monday, 8 October 2007 22:03 (eighteen years ago)

This song is great. I can't understand the hate here, except the hate through overexposure.

― Euler, Monday, 8 October 2007 22:08 (eighteen years ago)

This song reminds me of going to horrendous "night clubs" in North Sydney when I was in yr 12. Great times.

― W4LTER, Monday, 8 October 2007 22:13 (eighteen years ago)

THE TRUMPET

-- Dom Passantino, Monday, October 8, 2007 9:20 PM

on point

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 8 October 2007 22:23 (eighteen years ago)

I wish C4 still had the cricket highlights ;_;

― Just got offed, Monday, 8 October 2007 22:25 (eighteen years ago)

Who goes round intellectually defending songs?

Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

― Curt1s Stephens, Tuesday, 9 October 2007 00:39 (eighteen years ago)

One of the most annoying summer hits ever.

― Geir Hongro, Tuesday, 9 October 2007 09:14 (eighteen years ago)

There is a great video for the Perez Prado original on this
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ZEMTBY8GL._AA240_.jpg

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 9 October 2007 15:24 (eighteen years ago)

three weeks pass...

1999 was a relatively memorable year in pop music (for better and for worse). The summer even had its own set of memorable (again, in the full sense of the word) songs.

― Cunga, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 21:19 (eighteen years ago)

omg no.

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, 31 October 2007 21:19 (eighteen years ago)

not today.

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, 31 October 2007 21:20 (eighteen years ago)

IS IT TIME FOR A MAMBO NO. 5 POLL ?

― John Justen, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 21:21 (eighteen years ago)

THIS IS THE DAY

― Cunga, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 21:21 (eighteen years ago)

This song brings up bad memories of stolen southern comfort and awkward first time high school dance social handjobs . I'm unsettled.

― Popture, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 22:29 (eighteen years ago)

one year passes...

today i heard a truly stupid parody of this song that was full zings about the blagojevich scandal.
that does not constitute a comeback, but it's the most i've heard of this song in many years.

― La Lechera, Thursday, 11 December 2008 17:40 (seventeen years ago)

note: i found this thread via "random threads"

― La Lechera, Thursday, 11 December 2008 17:41 (seventeen years ago)

― Pfunkboy Formerly Known As... (Herman G. Neuname), Thursday, 11 December 2008 17:41 (seventeen years ago)

six years pass...

it's time

― the geographibebebe (unregistered), Thursday, 19 March 2015 15:37 (eleven years ago)

did this ever go away? still seem to hear it at least every few months on tv ads/weddings/office parties etc.

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 15:53 (eleven years ago)

less played is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijJjCZ8mnEI

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 15:55 (eleven years ago)

this reminds me of a youth spent idly watching cricket on tv so i can't absolutely hate it

― to pump a bit of lye (imago), Thursday, 19 March 2015 15:59 (eleven years ago)

I've never heard that Doop song before, but it bears an uncanny resemblance to '00s/'10s electro-swing stuff

― the geographibebebe (unregistered), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:03 (eleven years ago)

a UK / euro hit circa '92

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:05 (eleven years ago)

my mistake, number one in the UK in '94

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:06 (eleven years ago)

a good 15 years ahead of its time (lamentably)

― the geographibebebe (unregistered), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:06 (eleven years ago)

see also: Perez 'Prez' Prado - Guaglione - number 2 in 1995.

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:10 (eleven years ago)

some friends of mine in college used to frequent this waffle house that had a low tech juke box with mambo #5 and would spend a ton of quarters to continuously play the song on loop while they were there. eventually the song was removed from the machine (at which pt they switched to a back to back loop of tone loc songs iirc).

subsequently i always get a craving for waffles whenever i hear m#5

― head clowning instructor (art), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:15 (eleven years ago)

I've never heard that Doop song before, it is indeed pretty far ahead of its time in predicting electro swing. Number one hit, crazy!

I'm not seeing that it has anything to do with Loe Bega, though?

Doop was a dance music production act from the Netherlands formed by Ferry Ridderhof and Peter Garnefski

― Losing swag by the second (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:19 (eleven years ago)

Unless we're just talking 90s updates of old musical styles, in which case fair enough.

― Losing swag by the second (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:22 (eleven years ago)

p much convinced it's time i made my millions with a career in electro-swing.

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:23 (eleven years ago)

"electro swing" makes me think of when Moondog was in car commercials

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS_CLIF1h-o

― example (crüt), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:24 (eleven years ago)

i get the impression there'll always be a sizeable public appetite for electro-swing; it's like psy-trance and steampunk - never fashionable, so never out of favour with the kind of people who like it.

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:26 (eleven years ago)

That Doop song does feel a little more in line with the current Electro-Swing stuff than Mr Scruff does, though.

― MarkoP, Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:27 (eleven years ago)

there was a very brief moment in the nineties when, instead of r'n'b, everybody people called it 'swing', which is weird..

http://www.allmusic.com/album/pure-swing-the-very-best-of-90s-mw0001052463

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:28 (eleven years ago)

I'd say because of New Jack Swing, though that compilation was well after its heyday.

― MarkoP, Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:33 (eleven years ago)

yeah, it was when i was at school and NJS was well over and done with and pretty much not on the register among kids my age. still, everyone called it swing or soul and very rarely r'n'b

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:35 (eleven years ago)

Weird. Because whenever I heard someone talkng about "swing" circa 1999, it was in relation to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and GAP ads.

― MarkoP, Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:38 (eleven years ago)

this is roughly 93-97 in the UK. maybe the term 'r'n'b' was too confusing for UK audiences at the time? to older people that means, i dunno, the rolling stones or something...

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:44 (eleven years ago)

there were quite a few of those 'pure swing' compilations - the one i linked to is a 'best of' i think

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:47 (eleven years ago)

Wait wut? R&B in Britain in 1993 meant Rolling Stones and not Janet Jackson or SWV?

― Losing swag by the second (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:49 (eleven years ago)

no.

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:53 (eleven years ago)

but older people were still coming round to the idea that r'n'b didn't mean 'rhythm & blues' any more. to ageing mod types it was probably too confusing. this is the country that had to rename them to 'Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles' because ninjas were too confusing or violent or something

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:56 (eleven years ago)

this is the country that had to rename them to 'Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles'

wait, really??

― example (crüt), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:57 (eleven years ago)

yep:

In the United Kingdom, TMNT was released under the name Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (TMHT). This was due to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the controversy surrounding ninjas and related weapons such as nunchaku at the time.[19] The intro sequence was heavily edited because of this, replacing the word ninja with hero or fighting, using a digitally faded logo instead of the animated blob, and removing any scenes in which Michelangelo wields his nunchaku, replacing them with random clips from the show with the weapon the grapple tortoiseshell.[20]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_%281987_TV_series%29

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 16:59 (eleven years ago)

87-88 uk ninja crisis, i remember it well

― cgi bubka (NickB), Thursday, 19 March 2015 17:04 (eleven years ago)

We lived close by to the Dunstable ninja caravan site before it got cleared and all the ninjas were relocated up north. this time one boy, can't remember his name, brought some nunchucks into school. we looked at the nunchucks...

― why dont u say something or like just die (dog latin), Thursday, 19 March 2015 17:10 (eleven years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.