A-wimoweh A-wimoweh A-wimoweh A-wimoweh

[eine]

I can't stop playing Yma Sumac's ace version of Wimoweh.

Please post your Wimoweh / Lion Sleeps Tonight stories, anecdotes and especially song versions up here please.

Classy ones preferred of course, mucky ones celebrated, pedestrian ones happily accepted. In fact, here is a pedestrian Wimoweh anecdote: one of the lady non-singers from Tight Fit bought the pub at the end of my Mum's road for a while and my friends went there for drinks and when we got drunk we'd sing Wimoweh. APPARENTLY once she sang it which would have been weird eh?

[Sam]

Bizarrely enough, I do have a story for this one.

I was at uni late 90s when illicit MP3s were just becoming readily available. A friend of mine set about collecting every version of Wimoweh/Lion Sleeps Tonight that he could find, inspired by his liking of the excellent They Might Be Giants and their song The Guitar, which is a lose cover of The Lion Sleeps Tonight:

He ended up with 70-odd different versions. I suspect now you'd find many, many more as so much stuff hadn't found its way to illicit MP3 back then.

Lots of history on the song here : http://www.3rdearmusic.com/forum/mbube2.html

[Lord Thames]

I love this version - skip to 1'43" for an extraordinary wah-wah guitar solo which appears to be coming from the guitarist's mouth.

[babycart]

I love this version - skip to 1'43" for an extraordinary wah-wah guitar solo which appears to be coming from the guitarist's mouth.

Filed under "Youtube clips to watch the next time I´m stoned", thanks. Incredible.

I like Robert Delgado´s version, which has weird muted organ and regular ripe trombone farts.

and I like Dusty 's crack at it, too.

[Expiry2011]

Original and still the best

[No, LordNo]

This is where I remember hearing it repeatedly.

[pitch]

All I can contribute is that the 45 of Tight Fit's version has a pretty good B-side

[ashra]

The woman that ran a local (short-lived) cat sanctuary chazzer in the mid 90s was married to the man who invented Wimoweh (or so she reckoned)

[babycart]

I played "Tarzan" miming the falsettos in a loincloth, headband and half a pint of Johnsons Baby Oil when me and Sara Barnet and Claire Holdsworth (dressed in fetching safari suits) did a Tight Fit tribute at a school show.

[Brass Monkey]

I played "Tarzan" miming the falsettos in a loincloth, headband and half a pint of Johnsons Baby Oil when me and Sara Barnet and Claire Holdsworth (dressed in fetching safari suits) did a Tight Fit tribute at a school show.

safari suits are the new capes.

[eine]

I hope there are photos Babycart???

The Karl Dener TV clip is extraordinary. It's all in there innit: clapping grannies, bored teenagers, professional lounge musicians, booze, a buried colonial transaction, music hall, working men, Bernard Manning and ITV.

Thanks all for the others. Never heard Mbube before! Keep the versions and anecdotes coming.

[peretti]

I hope there are photos Babycart???

The Karl Dener TV clip is extraordinary. It's all in there innit: clapping grannies, bored teenagers, professional lounge musicians, booze, a buried colonial transaction, music hall, working men, Bernard Manning and ITV.

Thanks all for the others. Never heard Mbube before! Keep the versions and anecdotes coming.

Miriam's Mbube is my favourite but that Karl Denver version is just brilliant for all the above reasons.

[medlar]

I love this version - skip to 1'43" for an extraordinary wah-wah guitar solo which appears to be coming from the guitarist's mouth.

Just wow

[Carlitos]

This is the first version I ever heard. It's cringy but still like it, brings lots of memories.

[eine]

Looks like I answered my own question. The user who uploaded that first video has uploaded 100s of Lion Sleeps Tonight songs. Most of them very irritating. Weird one here, jungle one about weed here, 'funny noise' one here.

I feel subjected.