Let's Turkey Trot

Album

Single

Label

Dimension Records

Genre

Rhythm & Blues

Composer(s)

Carole King,;Gerry Goffin

Entered Chart

Feb 2, 1963

Peak Date

Mar 23, 1963

Released

January 1963

Recorded

Unknown

Catalog #

Dimension 1006

B-Side

Down Home

"Let's Turkey Trot" is a popular song with writing credits to Gerry Goffin and Jack Keller and/or Carole King. It was released by Little Eva as her third single for the Dimension label. The Little Eva's recording debuted on the charts on February 2, 1963, and peaked at #20 on the Hot 100. It was her third top 40 record. In Canada it reached #23, her third of four in the top 25.[1] The record features girl group the Cookies on background vocals, with the Cookies' lead Earl-Jean McCrea getting some solo lines. The song's title is a reference to the turkey trot dance step, a step that was only briefly popular fifty years before the song was released; the song is played at a tempo much slower than the one used for the dance in its heyday. The B-side of the original single is a Goffin-King song called "Down Home" that is also found on the 1962 Llllloco-Motion LP. In the film Easy Rider, Little Eva's "Let's Turkey Trot" is playing on the jukebox when the protagonists enter the café. The song was ambient sound and not a chosen song; it was omitted from the soundtrack album. Cash Box said that it "should start the kids off on another dance craze-as the tag implies" and it was a "sparkling choral and instrumental showcase on a lid that can go all the way."[2] The song was covered by Jan & Dean on their 1963 album, Jan & Dean take Linda Surfin. The Dollyrots covered the song on their EP A Dollyrots Christmas.

Come on let's turkey trot
Let's get it while its hot
This dance is really fine
{it shouldn't take much time} ?
My grandmother taught this dance to me
She did it at the turn of the century
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Come on let's turkey trot
People may say your some kind of a nut
When you're lifting your knees and you start to strut
But if your really want to get out of a rut
Do some turkey trottin' and all your cares will be forgotten
Come on let's turkey trot
Let's give it all we got
And when the dance is through
I'll trot some turkey with you
Oh we're gonna do the turkey trot again
Just like they did it back in 1910
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Come on and turkey trot
Gobbididly gobbididly
Oh we're gonna do the turkey trot again
Just like they did it back in 1910
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Come on and turkey trot
And give it all we got
You'll never want to stop
Come on and turkey trot