Arabian riff

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The basic melody

File:Arabian Song.jpg

The melody titled "Arabian Song" in Arban’s Complete Conservatory Method for Trumpet, first published in 1864.

"Arabian riff", also known as "The Streets of Cairo", "The Poor Little Country Maid", and "the snake charmer song", is a well-known melody, published in different forms in the 19th century. Alternate titles for children's songs using this melody include "The Girls in France" and "The Southern Part of France".

History

File:Streets of Cairo.jpg

1895 sheet music cover for "The Streets of Cairo"

There is a clear resemblance between the riff and the French song Colin prend sa hotte (published by Christophe Ballard in 1719), whose first five notes are identical. Colin prend sa hotte appears to derive from the lost Kradoudja, an Algerian folk song of the 17th century.

A version of the riff was published in 1845 by Franz Hünten as Melodie Arabe. The melody was described as an "Arabian Song" in the La grande méthode complète de cornet à piston et de saxhorn par Arban, first published in 1864.

Sol Bloom, a showman (and later a U.S. congressman), published the song as the entertainment director of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. It included an attraction called "A Street in Cairo" produced by Gaston Akoun, which featured snake charmers, camel rides and a scandalous dancer known as Little Egypt. Songwriter James Thornton penned the words and music to his own version of this melody, "Streets Of Cairo or The Poor Little Country Maid". Copyrighted in 1895, it was made popular by his wife Lizzie Cox, who used the stage name Bonnie Thornton. The oldest known recording of the song is from 1895, performed by Dan Quinn (Berliner Discs 171-Z).

The song was also recorded as "They Don't Wear Pants in the Southern Part of France" by John Bartles, the version sometimes played by radio host Dr. Demento.

Travadja La Moukère

In France, there is a song which pieds-noirs from Algeria brought back in the 1960s called "Travadja La Moukère" (from trabaja la mujer, which means "the woman works" in Spanish), which uses the same riff.

Partial lyrics: Template:Verse translation

In popular culture

Music

It has been used as a basis for numerous songs:

• "Hoolah! Hoolah!"
• "Dance of the Midway" (in reference to the Midway Plaisance of the World's Columbian Exposition)
• "Coochi-Coochi Polka"
• "Danse Du Ventre"
• "In My Harem" by Irving Berlin
• "Kutchy Kutchy"
• ''Strut, Miss Lizzie'' by Creamer and Layton

1900s

• "Scherzo for String Quartet" by Charles Ives (1904)

1920s

• "Sweet Mamma (Papa's Getting Mad)" by Original Dixieland Jass Band (1920)
• "Strut Miss Lizzie" by Lucille Hagamin (1921)
• The "Little Egypt" segment of the World's Columbian Exposition scene in Show Boat (1927)
• "Tight Like This" by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five (1928)

1930s

• "Dinah" by Louis Armstrong scene in København, Kalundborg og - ? (1933)
• "Twilight in Turkey" by the Raymond Scott Quintette (1937)
• "A Language All My Own" a song in the 1935 Betty Boop short, sung by Mae Questel (1935)

1940s

• This tune is quoted in Luther Billis' dance in "Honey Bun" from the musical South Pacific. (1949)
• "Bonaparte's Retreat" by Pee Wee King (1949)

1950s

• "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" by The Four Lads (1953) and They Might Be Giants (1990)
• "Native Dancer" by Abner Silver and Al Hoffman, recorded by Rusty Draper (1953)
• "Nellie the Elephant" by Ralph Butler (1956)
• "Teenager's Mother (Are You Right?)" by Bill Haley & His Comets (1956)
• "Ek Ladki Bheegi Bhaagi Si" from the motion picture Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958)
• "Oriental Rock" by Bill Haley & His Comets (1958)

1960s

• "The Sheik of Araby" performed by the Beatles during their 1962 Decca audition, with George Harrison as the lead singer and Pete Best on the drums (this track can be found on Anthology 1).
• "Egyptian Surf" by The Temptations (New York vocal group) (1963)
• "I've Got the Skill" by Jackie Ross (US #89, 1964)
• "Revolution 9" by the Beatles (1968)
• "Funky Mule" by Buddy Miles Express (1968)

1970s

• "The Grand Wazoo" by Frank Zappa (1972)
• "Sharon" by David Bromberg (1972)
• "Java" by Augustus Pablo (1974)
• "Uragiri No Machikado (裏切りの街角)" by Kai Band (甲斐バンド) (1975)
• "Pra Lá de Bagdá" by The Fevers (1975)
• "You Scared the Lovin' Outta Me" by Funkadelic (1976)
• "Open Sesame" by Kool & the Gang (1976)
• "One for the Vine" by Genesis (1976)
• "Egyptian Reggae" by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers (1977)
• "King Tut" by Steve Martin (1978)
• "White Cigarettes" by P-Model (1979)

1980s

• "Menergy" by Patrick Cowley (1981)

1990s

• "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" by They Might Be Giants (1990)

2010s

• "Take It Off" by Kesha (2010)

2020s

• "My Oh My" by Ava Max (2024)
• "Serving" by Miriana Conte (2025)

Children's culture and parodies

The tune is used for a 20th-century American children's song with – like many unpublished songs of child folk culture – countless variations as the song is passed from child to child over considerable lengths of time and geography, the one constant being that the versions are almost always obscene. One variation, for example, is:

There's a place in France
Where the ladies wear no pants
But the men don't care
'cause they don't wear underwear.

or a similar version:

There's a place in France
Where the naked ladies dance
There's a hole in the wall
Where the men can see it all.

See also

• Oriental riff – similar musical motif, often associated with China
• Italian riff

External links

• "Streets of Cairo" sheet music in the Levy Collection, via Jscholarship
• Template:Trim Template:Replace on YouTube
• Template:Trim Template:Replace on YouTube