For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday Theme, Jim Adams’ has taken another suggestion from Christine Bialczak of Stine Writing. Last week she suggested that we feature a song from a band that has a food-related name. But this week’s challenge is to feature a song that mentions a food. I’m going with Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song).”

“Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” is a traditional Jamaican folk song. It is a call and response work song from the point of view of dock workers working the night shift loading bananas onto ships. The lyrics describe how daylight has come, their shift is over, and they want their work to be counted up (by the boss, the “tally man”) so that they can go home. The best-known version was released by Jamaican-American singer Harry Belafonte in 1956 and later became one of his signature songs.

Belafonte’s version used lyrics adapted by Irving Burgie and William Attaway. Burgie, sometimes credited as “Lord Burgess,” was a popular Caribbean composer. Attaway was a novelist and songwriter who was friends with Belafonte.

At around the same time as Belafonte released his version of the song, a group called The Tarriers, which included Alan Arkin, who went on to fame as an actor, released a version of the song that was a combination of the traditional “Banana Boat Song” and a Jamaican folk song called “Hill and Gully Rider.” Their release reach number 4 on the U.S. pop charts, where it outperformed Belafonte’s version, which topped out at number 5.

Here are the lyrics to Belafonte’s “Day-O ( The Banana Boat Song).”

Day-o, day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day
Me say day, me say day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Work all night on a drink of rum
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Stack banana 'til de mornin' come
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Come, mister tally man, tally me banana
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Come, mister tally man, tally me banana
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Day, me say day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day
Daylight come and me wan' go home

A beautiful bunch o' ripe banana
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Hide the deadly black tarantula
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Day, me say day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Come, mister tally man, tally me banana
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Come, mister tally man, tally me banana
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Day-o, day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day
Me say day, me say day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home

For those of you who are interested, here is the version from the Tarriers.