Anyway, this particular story-song has always been in the back of my mind. It's a story about procrastinating on homework. He had to write a report in sixth grade on Zanzibar and instead wrote a song about it. I can't for the life of my find an MP3 link to post on here, but I did find it on iTunes. The whole tape. It's two stories and a song and it's only $2!!! I was very excited to find it.
Here are the lyrics to the song, in case you remember, like me:
Zanzibar, Zanzibar,
Zanzibar is very far
You can’t get there in a car
It’s too far to Zanzibar
Zanzibar, they don’t have tar
To put on roads to drive their cars
Men and women smoke cigars
There’s no tar in Zanzibar
In Zanzibar, they grow cloves
What they’re for, I don’t know
Maybe they put ‘em between their toes
In Zanzibar, they grow cloves
In Zanzibar, they grow ground nuts
People who grow them live in huts
In Zanzibar there’s sugar cane
To grow it they need lots of rain
In Zanzibar, they grow tea
Far away across the sea
Off the coast of Afriki
In Zanzibar, they grow tea
Zanzibar, Zanzibar,
Zanzibar is very far
You can’t get there in a car
It’s too far to Zanzibar
My wife got this tape from the library about 15 years ago before we went on a long driving trip with our two kids (they were about 5 and 10 years old). To this day we all remember the story and song. Everytime time I hear any mention of Zanzibar I start singing. These lyrics bring back a lot of great memories.
ReplyDeleteGlad I could remind you of a fun time. =)
ReplyDeleteWe listened to this in my sixth grade class. Wow... I LOVED this.
ReplyDeleteWe listened to it in my seventh grade class. I still love it.
DeleteThis is why I love the internet. In the late eighties I heard a piece of what was apparently a Bill Harley tape including the Zanzibar story/song. I have never forgotten the song but never knew what it was. Twenty-five years later, a search for "no tar in Zanzibar" (the only lyrics I could remember)and the mystery is solved.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post
Haha, Will. I'm glad I could solve the mystery. It's actually really funny you commented ont oday of all days because I just played this story/song for my Pre-K kids and they LOVED it. =)
ReplyDeleteI used to play this for my four graders after they finished the treasure hunt I created using atlases and geographical dictionaries. The treasure hunt started in Zanzibar so this was their reward.
ReplyDeleteI've been looking for this for 25 years. Thank you so much! I never knew the author's name, I just heard it on NPR once, and I can't hear the word Zanzibar without thinking of this song and singing the chorus.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in St. Louis around this time! It was the imagination station which later changed its name to fun radio before it became an R&B station. I used to listen to it all the time (for context I was born in 1982). I always remembered this song but could never find out who sung it. The lyrics really stick with you. Also that weird song they used to play that was something like “North Dakota South Dakota in a canoe, going down the river like the Indians do. We’ll see buffalo & skies so blue, North Dakota South Dakota in a canoe.” Do you remember that one?
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DeleteYES!!!! We had the tape!! Janet & Judy 50 States of America. There's a whole playlist of that tape on YouTube. Here's the link to that song on the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZbyGpn-usE&list=OLAK5uy_lmTXPYf9G18goOwdv4uiIEoKh2X7UeteE&index=5
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