The Big Easy List: Lady Marmalade

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Hi gang! It’s time for another trip down the French Quarter, as I continue this month of songs that mention New Orleans in the lyrics. Today’s song was very popular when I was in junior high school, and it had people lining up out the door to take French classes. Here’s today’s song. Lady Marmalade - Labelle Let’s start with the songwriters. If you grew up in the 70s or have heard 70s AM radio music, you’ve heard that Frankie Valli solo song “My Eyes Adored You.” You may have also heard that lovely piece of schmaltz called “I Like Dreamin’” (“I like dreamin’ ‘cause dreamin’ can make you mine”). Both of those songs were written by the guy who co-wrote THIS. The guilty party is Kenny Nolan. The other co-writer was Bob Crewe, who was one of the primary songwriters of many of the hits by the Four Seasons. And they wrote this. And, as we didn’t have the internet back in ‘74, people had to go get a French-English dictionary or, as many of the kids in my junior high did, sign up for French class. (I went to junior high in Florida, and the French class was full while the Spanish class had crickets. ) It might have helped Patti La Belle to take some French, too, because she swears she had NO idea what this song was about. Listen, I was 14 and I knew what the song was about, even if I didn’t know what she was saying in French! (To keep you from running to Google Translate: Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir is “do you want to sleep with me tonight?”) Yep, it’s a song about a poor guy who had his life turned upside down by a night with a Bourbon Street prostitute. This was Labelle’s biggest hit as a group (their only hit as a group), although Patti La Belle has had an extensive solo career. And a little fun fact: fifteen years before Naked Eyes had the 80s hit “Always Something There to Remind Me,” Labelle recorded it (as Patti La Belle and the Bluebelles). No prostitutes in that version. Lady Marmalade Written by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan Recorded by Labelle From Nightbirds, 1974 NEW ORLEANS LYRICS: Lady Marmalade down in old New Orleans