About the Song

First heard it in the soundtrack of „Rain Main“. The internet is full of rumours about the origin of this song. As far as I found out, it is an old Mardi Gras chant that was popularized by the girl-group "Dixie Cups" back in 1965. Even the authorship of the song was subject to various lawsuits. Linguists and other smart people still speculate about the meaning and descent of the lyrics. 

Original Key

There are so many covers around, it is hard to tell. I believe the Dixie Cups version is in F.

Tuning

Regular gCEA (should also work with low G)

Tab Notes

Just as usual, I only tabbed the very basic melody. By the way, the song is tabbed at „half speed“, meaning that a quarter note in the tab is actually an eighth note, and so on. Good News: two chords are just enough.

You can’t go wrong when you pick the melody line out of the chord positions or play it in a „two-string-strumming“ style, avoid plucking the 1st string. There are some breaks in the „he-na“ part that need to be filled in order to maintain the groove. All the frills and furbelows are up to you.

Repeat endlessly and have fun.