I already wrote a post about the Coasters compilation album I listened to this morning, but I found enough to say about "Little Egypt" that I felt I should make it a separate post.
At first, all I was going to say was that Leiber and Stoller use the phrase "one thin dime" again. ("Just one thin dime, one tenth of a dollar, step right up, folks") It also appears in "On Broadway." ("One thin dime won't even shine your shoes.")
I actually don't know much about "On Broadway," but according to internet research, it was written by Leiber and Stoller along with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. It's possible that Mann and Weil came up with the line while writing "On Broadway," and then Leiber and Stoller later used it in "Little Egypt." I don't know how the chronology fits into this either. ("Little Egypt" was released in April 1961.)
But because I'm transcribing the lyrics for the songs whose lyrics I comment on, I found some other interesting things:
There's some opposites in the line "They pulled the curtain up and when they turned a spotlight way down low."
There's a fair amount of alliteration in some lines: "Little Egypt came out strutting, wearing nothing but a button and a bow," "She had a ruby on her tummy and a diamond big as Texas on her toe," and "When she did her special number on a zebra skin I thought she’d stop the show."
And, finally, there's some internal rhyme in a line in the last verse: "She’s too busy mopping and a-takin’ care of shoppin’ at the store."
