Watusi Rodeo is one of those songs that worms it’s way into your brain and sits in your happy space until you have to pay some attention. It’s a light hearted, tongue in cheek song about Western Colonization, as the cowboys don’t seem to understand how they could possibly be angering the natives while violating a burial ground and forcing them to wear Western wear. Plus, it’s a good, fun tune.
You can listen to the song below:
And of course, the lyrics:
Come along with me to the Congo land
Got a zebra by the tail and a python in my hand
Once my home was a Texas plain
But now I swing a lasso on an alien terrain
Hottentots and pygmies know where to go
Everybody’s heading for the Watusi Rodeo
Cowboys are putting up a big fence around
A sacred elephant burial ground
Native women stomping up a flurry in the mud
Villagers are looking for some cowboy blood (Blood!)
I guess they didn’t like them hats we made ‘em wear
They don’t look right on the native hair
Don’t they don’t it’s all for show
All for showing at the Watusi Rodeo
Monkeys in the trees just thumbing their nose
At the bull-riders riding on rhinos
Warriors standing with spears in the hands
Wondering what’s next from a crazy white man
Natives are restless under these Stetsons
What are these cowboys doing in the Congo
Look like cows but they’re water buffaloes
Ropin’ and a riding in the Watusi Rodeo
Oh they look like cows but they’re water buffaloes
Everybody’s heading for the Watusi Rodeo
August 31st, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Can’t say I’m familiar with these guys, but it’s a solid song… really digging the sardonic/subversive combination of lyrics and jangle-pop.
September 1st, 2008 at 8:11 pm
It’s worth tracking down some of their other material. I’ve done at least one other song by these guys, and for the most part they’re really a lot of fun.
September 5th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
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