#SongLyricSunday-Tutti Frutti-October 3

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This week our host Jim Adams for Song Lyric Sunday has given us the racy prompt of a song or lyric where somebody is having sex or talking about it.

Please consider carving out time to read the posts of other bloggers who responded to the Song Lyric Sunday challenge.

Song Lyric Sunday Rules

Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it contains the prompt words or not.  If it does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due.  Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be.
• Make sure you also credit the singer/band and if you desire you can provide a link to where you found the lyrics.
• Link to the YouTube video, or pull it into your post so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

Tutti Frutti

Rock n’ Roll is often used as a slang for sex. Well one of the earliest Rock and Roll songs is my choice this week. How can you not love a song that starts out with iconic lyrics. If you hear Bop bopa-a-lu a whop bam boo you know Little Richard’s is singing Tutti Frutti.

Richard Wayne Penniman “Little Richard” was born on December 5, 1932, in Macon, Georgia. He was the third of 12 children. His father, Bud, was a stern man who made his living selling moonshine and didn’t do much to hide his disdain for his son’s early signs of homosexuality. At the age of 13 Richard was ordered to move out of the family home, and his relationship with his father was never repaired. When Richard was 19, his father was shot dead outside a local bar.

Fusing gospel, blues and R&B, Richard was a super talent on the piano. He was star in the mid-1950s, pounding away on the keys often backed with saxophones. His songs including “Tutti Frutti” always seemed to be about girls he either wanted to do the deed with or was already doing. His lyrics were funky, and described the flow of sex. Please tell me else “A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom” possibly mean? 

Long before Little Richard recorded Tutti Frutti, he performed it at his shows with the title “Tutti Frutti, Good Booty. The song was too raunchy for white audiences so it had to be cleaned up before being recorded. The original song included the following

If it’s tight, it’s alright
If it’s greasy, it makes it easy

Those lines got replaced with “Tutti Frutti, aw Rudi“

Tutti Frutti got recorded in the 1950’s.

This is one of the most famous songs of all time, making #43 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, but it was not a huge hit, going to #2 on the R&B charts and reaching just #17 on the Hot 100.

Pat Boone fared better with his 1956 cover, taking it to #12. Boone had a long career doing sanitized covers of songs by black artists, and he also covered Richard’s “Long Tall Sally.” Many listeners at the time only knew the song through Boone, so Little Richard’s promotional materials often labeled him “Original ‘Tutti Frutti’ Man.”

Lyrics to Tutti Frutti

Little Richard Singing Tutti Frutti

Little Richard performs “Tutti Frutti” at the 1995 Concert for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Bop bopa-a-lu a whop bam boo which brings us to next week’s prompt. It will be Heavenly Bodies, Planets, Moon, Sun, Stars.