Dedicated to Jack Lee and Billy Delaney
"The Aba Daba Honeymoon" (1914)
Words and Music by
Arthur Fields (1888-1953) and Walter Donaldson (1888-1964)

Published by LEO FEIST, Inc., Feist Building, New York
[Source: facsimile on pages 2-5 from
"The St. Louis Blues and Other Song Hits of 1914"
Edited by Sandy Marrone
(New York: Dover Pub., Inc. 1990)]

1. ’Way down in the Congoland
Lived a happy chimpanzee,
She loved a monkey with a long tail,
(Lordy, how she loved him!)
Each night he would find her there,
Swinging in the cocoanut tree,
And the monkey gay, at the break of day,
Lived to hear his Chimpie say:

CHORUS 1 & 2 [sung after first VERSE]
“Aba, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, dab,”
Said the Chimpie to the Monk,
“Baba, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, dab,”
Said the Monkey to the Chimp.
All night long they’d chatter away,
All day long they were happy and gay,
Singing and swinging in their hunky, tonkey way.
“Aba, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, dab,”
Means “Monk, I love but you,”
“Baba, daba, dab,” is monkeytalk,
means “Chimp, I love you too,”

[sung after CHROUS 1]
Then the big baboon, one night in June,
He married them, and very soon
They went upon their aba, daba honeymoon.

2. Well, you should have heard that band
Play upon their wedding day,
Each Chimp and Monkey had nutshells,
Lordy how they played them;
And now it is ev’ry night,
High up in the cocoanut tree,
It’s the same old thing, with the same old swing,
When the Monk and Chimpie sing:

[sung after CHORUS 2]
One night they were made man and wife,
And now they cry, “This is the life,”
Since they came from their aba, daba honeymoon.