Peak
5
Weeks
20
Score
3,919
Chart Year
1957
This is a traditional Jamaican song that was sung by dock workers who worked throughout the night loading bananas onto ships. It's daylight, and they look forward to the arrival of the Tallyman (who will take inventory) so they can go home. Belafonte's version used lyrics adapted by Irving Burgie and William Attaway. Burgie, sometimes credited as "Lord Burgess," is a popular Caribbean composer. Attaway was a novelist and songwriter who was friends with Belafonte. Burgie and Attaway wrote most of the songs on the Calypso album. This song was first recorded in 1952 by Edric Conner, a musician from Trinidad who sang it with his band The Carribeans as "Day De Light." The song re-emerged in 1956 when the folk singer Bob Gibson taught the song to the folk trio The Tarriers after hearing it on a trip to Jamaica. Once The Terriers recorded it, the Calypso Craze took off in America, and Belafonte capitalized on the trend: According to BMI, the Calypso album was the first to sell over 1 million copies. Alan Arkin, who went on to fame as an actor, was a member of The Tarriers. Their version was a combination of the traditional "Banana Boat Song" and a Jamaican folk song called "Hill and Gully Rider." Shirley Bassey used the same arrangement on her 1957 version and became the first to chart with the song in the UK, hitting #8. This remains the most popular mainstream calypso song, and the song most identified with Belafonte. It was not the first calypso hit in America, however. That honor goes to The Andrews Sisters - three white girls from Minnesota - who had a #1 in 1945 with "Rum and Coca-Cola," a song written and originally recorded by the Trinidadian musician Lord Invader. In the '50s, as the "calypso craze" took hold, other white acts had hits in the genre, often with novelty numbers (Perry Como with ""Pa-Paya Mama"; Georgia Gibbs with "Somebody Bad Stole De Wedding Bell"), but Belafonte had authenticity on his side; his father was from the West Indies, and his mother from Jamaica, where he lived for about five years growing up. Report This Ad Six artists hit the US Top 40 with "The Banana Boat Song" in 1957: The Terriers version was the first to chart at #4 (#15 in the UK), followed by Belafonte, The Fontane Sisters (#13), Steve Lawrence (#18), Sarah Vaughan (#19), and Stan Freberg, whose comedy version hit #25. Belafonte performed this on TV for the first time when he was a guest star on season 3 of The Muppet Show. During the performance, he explained the significance of the Tallyman to Fozzie Bear ("he's the guy who counts the bananas as they go to the hold of the ship") and did his best to harmonize with some musically inept Muppets. This was featured in a raucous dinner scene during the 1988 movie Beetlejuice. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles 1965 hit "The Tracks Of My Tears" features similar chord changes. The Miracles guitarist Marv Tarplin has admitted he got the idea after listening to Harry Belfonte's version of this song. Belafonte said in an interview with the ArtsJournal blog Jazz Beyond Jazz: "The most important thing to me about 'The Banana Boat Song' is that before America heard it, Americans had no notion of the rich culture of the Caribbean. Very few of them did, anyway, which made no sense to me. It made no sense to me back then that people in America would not respond to the Caribbean culture I knew in joyous, positive ways. But there were these cultural assumptions then about people from the Caribbean - that they were all rum drinking, sex-crazed and lazy - not they were tillers of the land, harvesters of bananas for landlords of the plantations. I thought, let me sing about a new definition of these people. Let me sing a classic work song, about a man who works all night for a sum equal to the cost of a dram of beer, a man who works all night because it's cooler then than during the day." In the E*TRADE 2018 Super Bowl Commercial "This Is Getting Old," senior citizens sing altered lyrics ("I'm 85 and I want to go home") to this song, reflecting their woes at having to work in their dotage. A choir of children sing "Day-O" in the 2024 Beetlejuice sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Oh no! We said it three times!). It's part of a funeral scene, so it's a more somber version of the song. This rendition is by Alfie Davis and the Sylvia Young Theatre School Choir and was released as a single.
Day-o, day-o Daylight come and me wan' go home Day, me say day, me say day, me say day Me say day, me say day-o Daylight come and me wan' go home Work all night on a drink of rum Daylight come and me wan' go home Stack banana 'til de mornin' come Daylight come and me wan' go home Come, mister tally man, tally me banana Daylight come and me wan' go home Come, mister tally man, tally me banana Daylight come and me wan' go home Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch Daylight come and me wan' go home Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch Daylight come and me wan' go home Day, me say day-o Daylight come and me wan' go home Day, me say day, me say day, me say day Daylight come and me wan' go home A beautiful bunch o' ripe banana Daylight come and me wan' go home Hide the deadly black tarantula Daylight come and me wan' go home Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch Daylight come and me wan' go home Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch Daylight come and me wan' go home Day, me say day-o Daylight come and me wan' go home Day, me say day, me say day, me say day Daylight come and me wan' go home Come, mister tally man, tally me banana Daylight come and me wan' go home Come, mister tally man, tally me banana Daylight come and me wan' go home Day-o, day-o Daylight come and me wan' go home Day, me say day, me say day, me say day Me say day, me say day-o Daylight come and me wan' go home
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jan 12, 1957 | 27 | 99 |
| 2 | Jan 19, 1957 | 12 | 114 |
| 3 | Jan 26, 1957 | 13 | 113 |
| 4 | Feb 2, 1957 | 8 | 118 |
| 5 | Feb 9, 1957 | 8 | 118 |
| 6 | Feb 16, 1957 | 7 | 119 |
| 7 | Feb 23, 1957 | 6 | 120 |
| 8 | Mar 2, 1957 | 5 | 121 |
| 9 | Mar 9, 1957 | 5 | 121 |
| 10 | Mar 16, 1957 | 6 | 120 |
| 11 | Mar 23, 1957 | 9 | 117 |
| 12 | Mar 30, 1957 | 13 | 113 |
| 13 | Apr 6, 1957 | 17 | 109 |
| 14 | Apr 13, 1957 | 21 | 105 |
| 15 | Apr 20, 1957 | 20 | 106 |
| 16 | Apr 27, 1957 | 34 | 92 |
| 17 | May 4, 1957 | 43 | 83 |
| 18 | May 11, 1957 | 40 | 86 |
| 19 | May 18, 1957 | 57 | 69 |
| 20 | May 25, 1957 | 86 | 40 |