Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Bikini in Vietnam

So this week I am going to feature another 45 that I found in the dusty, dirty Ho Chi Minh City antique store. 

Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini is one of those songs, like Girl From Ipanema, that  we all know and probably wish that we didn’t. First recorded by Brian Hyland  it was a US number one hit in August, 1960, and made the top 10 in other countries, including number 8 in the UK and number 2 in Australia.

1960 was a year for novelty songs with Running Bear, Alley-Oop and Mr Custer also becoming number one hits. It says a lot about me that I can sing all of them for you...

Bryan Hyland himself had a number of minor hits and two other major Top 10 hits, Sealed With a Kiss in 1962 (number 3) and Gypsy Woman in 1970 (number 3, also), no I don’t know it either and frankly can’t even be bothered Googling it. (OK, I just listened on YouTube, don’t bother, it's awful). 

There have been many, many versions of IBTWYPB and it has been sung in French (by Dalida), German, Portuguese, Bulgarian (!), Spanish, Finnish and Greek. Our version is Vietnamese. 
Unfortunately the Vietnamese 45s I found have had hard lives and are a bit rough. They are also mainly traditional Vietnamese music which frankly can be a bit boring, especially as most of the songs last well over five minutes.

What’s interesting is that most of the songs start off with a Western melody, as with IBTWYPB and then will go into an extended traditional direction as you’ll hear, I’ve cut it it off early for your sanity, but included a little of the traditional section so you can get the drift. Listen for the fellow playing the stringed instrument, he gets some impressive runs going. Many of the tracks also have extended talking bits, comedy I guess.

Now I asked my good Vietnamese friend, Khanh, to tell me what they are saying in this song because I can’t imagine that they’d be singing about a bikini (people in Vietnam still go into the water at the beach fully clothed!). So Khanh tells me that:

This song is talking about a man inviting his friend to go to drink beer, but his friend is busy, he can’t go to drink beer, he has to go with girls (it means "prostitute"). That's all.

So there we have it, the girl in the teeny weeny bikini has morphed into something less innocent.

When the North Vietnamese Army came through Saigon these records were seen as being anti-revolutionary, in fact it is still illegal to own them, but I doubt that the Party cares too much about them now. People destroyed their records or hid them, or buried them, which explains their filthy condition. People would also tear the labels off so that the record couldn’t be identified. 

One thing I like about Vietnamese 45s is that they are often in coloured vinyl. They are also a little larger in size, maybe to accommodate their extended length and maintain quality, they don’t fit into standard sleeves.