Ken Foote's Friday Fun Songs: Lou Bega And Mambo No. 5
(CBS 11) - Todays' Friday Fun Song has its roots going back 70 years to 1949 when Cuban musician/performer Perez Prado recorded this song originally.
Lou Bega (born David Lubega on April 13, 1975) is a German singer/songwriter and rapper, born to a Sicilian mother and a Ugandan father.
He started his music career at age 13 as a rapper, and later founded a hip-hop group with two other kids. As a child, he lived in Italy with his mother, then in Munich (where he was born).
Yet when he traveled to Miami a few years later, he fell in love with Latin pop music. There he found the inspiration for "Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…)" which is actually the official name of the song.
Bega recorded the song 1998 but not released until April 19, 1999.
In the U.S., it reached #3 on Billboard and was on the charts for 20 weeks. It reached #1 in 35 countries around the globe! But this would be his only song to chart on the American Billboard.
Written by Bega, Perez Prado, Zippy Davids, produced by Goar B, Frank Lio, Donald Fact and Peter Meisel, running 3:39 (radio edit version) on the RCA Records label, the lyrics go like this:
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mambo Number Five
One, two, three, four, five
Everybody in the car, so come on, let's ride
To the liquor store around the corner
The boys say they want some gin and juice
But I really don't wanna
Beer bust like I had last week
I must stay deep because talk is cheap
I like Angela, Pamela, Sandra and Rita
And as I continue you know they getting sweeter
So what can I do? I really beg you, my Lord
To me is flirting it's just like sport, anything fly
It's all good, let me dump it, please set in the trumpet
A little bit of Monica in my life
A little bit of Erica by my side
A little bit of Rita is all I need
A little bit of Tina is what I see
A little bit of Sandra in the sun
A little bit of Mary all night long
A little bit of Jessica, here I am
A little bit of you makes me your man
Mambo Number Five
The original video made has Bega singing the song along with video clips of women in flappers; however, it might not totally appropriate for all of our readers, so we are using another video with lyrics only.
You can hear this song on SIRIUS XM 90s On with Downtown Julie Brown.
Enjoy!