Showing posts with label Where Have We Met Before?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Where Have We Met Before?. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

The Andrews Sisters' "Where Have We Met Before?"

This morning I listened to a compilation album of the Andrews Sisters, and I think I found some allusions in "Where Have We Met Before?"

The second verse begins with the lines: "It might have been way back in Nagasaki / Where women wicky wacky 'round your door."  I think this is a reference to the song "Nagasaki."  Apparently this is a jazz standard, but I have only Django Reinhardt's version, which has the lines "Back in Nagasaki where the fellas chew tobaccy / And the women wicky wacky woo."

The third verse of "Where Have We Met Before?" begins with "It might have been in Paris in the springtime," which I think is a reference to "April in Paris."  It's not as direct as the allusion to "Nagasaki," but April is in spring, so the temporal elements do match.

I lookt up the dates for these songs, and I think the chronology allows for the allusions.  The dates I found say that "Nagasaki" is from 1928; "April in Paris" is from 1932; and the Andrews Sisters' "Where Have We Met Before?" is from 1938.

I can't fully articulate it, but there's something fitting about referencing other songs in a song that asks, "Where have we met before?"