View Full Version : New Little Richard bio claims "Tutti Frutti" is A Song About Sex?!


Brian Damage
02-08-2010, 10:35 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/books/review/DeCurtis-t.html

“Tutti Frutti,” his 1955 breakthrough hit, is not best described as “a paean” to anal sex that helped transform him into “a cultural icon on the scale of the founding fathers.”

Indeed, exploring the significance of “Tutti Frutti” is another of the book’s projects. Perhaps because the song has long been acknowledged as one of the detonating blasts of the ’50s rock ’n’ roll explosion, Kirby feels compelled to up the stakes. “Tutti Frutti,” he maintains, is “a seminal text in American culture, as much as ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ ‘Song of Myself’ and the great documents of the civil rights era are. In a sense, it’s America’s Other National Anthem.”



Little Richard - Tutti Frutti

A-Wop-bop-a-loo-lop a-lop-bam-boo
Tutti Frutti, all over rootie,.....
A-wop-bop-a-loo-lop a-lop bam boo

I got a gal, named Sue,
She knows just what to do. .....
I've been to the east, I'vebeen to the west, but
she's the gal
That I love the best.

Tutti Frutti, all over rootie,.....
A-wop-bop-a-loo-lop a-lop bam boo

I got a gal, named Daisy,
She almost drives me crazy ........
She knows how to love me ,
Yes indeed
Boy you don't know,
What she's doing to me

Tutti Frutti, all over rootie,.....
A-wop-bop-a-loo-lop a-lop bam boo

I got a gal, named Daisy...

oldguywithsticks
02-09-2010, 03:11 AM
I once read that to make the song less risque, Penniman changed the lyrics, which originally were 'tutti frutti, loose booty'. Apparantly the 'new' lyrics are just now gaining controversy...55 years after the fact. What about "Rip it Up"? "I wanna rock it up, I wanna rip it up, I wanna shake it up, wanna ball it up, I wanna rock it up, and ball tonight!" Other Richard tunes are probably the same way...

Pitooey
02-09-2010, 09:55 AM
Was Little Richard at Cadillac records? If he was then they gave him holy hell about his lyrics.

oldguywithsticks
02-09-2010, 03:02 PM
Richard was at Specialty Records during the '50s. I don't think there is/was a real Cadillac Records, I believe that was just a story based on Chess Records, or something like that.

MickeyMac
02-09-2010, 03:29 PM
Dont waste your time with the Caddilac records thing, it aint accurate.


Whether Little Richard's songs are about sex or not, they still rock. Nobody does it like him. One of the few rock pioneers we have left (along with Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the Everly Brothers).

Zoneboy
02-09-2010, 03:36 PM
There was a Cadillac Records but I'm not sure when it was started. This one is from 1968.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo283/tzgames/Cadillac.jpg