Yes, We Have No Bananas (Again)

While shopping for some provisions for the birthday I wrote about last week, I was reminded of the lyrics from another song – one much older than “When I’m 64”, but also far more popular in its time. Marianne had put bananas on the list of things I was to bring home. After failing to find any at two separate stores, a musical association was impossible to avoid: Yes, We Have No Bananas.

It seems that a fungal disease known as TR4 or Panama Disease has been wiping out banana trees left and right. It is evidently a problem that virtually all commercially grown bananas have been of a single variety (the “Cavendish” cultivar), so that when the right disease strikes, bananas are doomed and shortages are the result.

This is not the first time this as happened. Bananas became big business after United Fruit Company was formed in Costa Rica in 1899. United Fruit Company (the forerunner of Chiquita) started the first commercial banana plantation and we in the U.S. have been eating bananas ever since. The company was into a lot more than bananas, operating railroads, and managing key services (to the point of effective control) for several countries in Central and South America – hence the term “banana republic”. It even operated its own steamship line that added a tourist business to augment the banana freight.

Did you know that banana trees are sterile and unable to reproduce? Neither did I, until I started looking into the history of the fruit. This means that every banana tree is essentially a clone of another banana tree, which makes them highly susceptible to disease because of the lack of genetic variety. This first became a problem in the 1920’s, when the original strain of commercially grown bananas (the “Gros Michel” or “Big Mike”) got hit with Panama Disease. United Fruit tried to stay ahead of the disease by abandoning infected areas and starting new growth elsewhere, but there were supply problems at first. How do we know this? Because of popular music.

“Yes, We Have No Bananas” was the monster hit from the summer of 1923 – exactly one hundred years ago. It was recorded by, well, a bunch of performers that year – one source has identified 18 separate recordings of the song in 1923, with 5 versions released in June of that year and another 5 in July. There were almost certainly more. That source claims that the long-forgotten pair of Furman & Nash was the first to get the song on disc in June, but those that followed were bigger hits. Billy Jones was best known during the 1920’s as half of the singing duo “The Happiness Boys”, which was the highest-paid act on the air in the early days of radio. Jones got label credit on at least 5 of those 18 recordings from 1923, so it only seems fair that one of his versions gets featured here.

The piece was first performed in a 1922 show called “Make It Snappy” by Vaudeville star Eddie Cantor. That show was little more than a puffball collection of musical numbers, and which also introduced another old jazz standard, “The Sheik Of Araby.” Lyricist Frank Silver later recalled that he was with a band that was playing a venue in New York and that he stopped at a nearby fruit stand. It was run by a Greek fellow who began the answer to every question with “Yes”. Silver wrote the lyrics and his friend Irving Cohen wrote the tune, leading to one of the best-selling pieces of sheet music in history. It has also been called the most popular novelty tune of the entire decade of the 1920’s.

Radio was still in its infancy in 1923, so hit songs were more of a multi-media phenomenon then. In addition to sheet music and records, there were also rolls for player pianos, like this one. I love these old piano rolls because they highlight a style of playing that went completely out of vogue after the early 1930’s. Notice, for example, the way the chords on the left hand get “rolled”, with each note coming in a quick sequence on top of the others instead of all of them being played at once. If you watch the right-side edge of the piano roll, you can read the words to sing along for yourself (if you can get the hang of reading words by moving your eyes up for each word instead of down as we are used to).

Whether poking fun or no, those long-ago performers unknowingly predicted by up to a full century something that I did not realize until my recent shopping trip – that no bananas has (again) become a fairly common occurrence. The banana growers thought they had licked Panama Disease when they came up with the Cavendish variety to replace the Big Mike in the early 1950’s, and this is the one we have been eating ever since. Until now, it seems. The growers are once again feverishly working on a new variety that resists the fungal scourge and we will probably soon experience some bananas with a slightly different flavor and texture than the ones we all grew up with.

In any case, I am fairly sure that those working at the two stores I visited would not have answered an inquiry into the absence of bananas in a way that would inspire a hit song. Oh well, if you can’t eat ’em, sing about ’em.

Bonus Features: How about a little jazz with those missing bananas?

With our periodic focus on classic jazz, it didn’t seem right to feature a hit tune from the 1920’s and not look to see if there were ever any decent jazz versions to come of it. Well, for those interested in a slight segue, here is what I found.

This song seems to have resisted leaving its lane as a pop-culture phenom, and while some 1920’s versions were a touch jazzier than others, this song’s value was always seen in the lyrics. However, once the song got to the twenty-five year mark, it seems to have been picked up on a (very slight) wave of nostalgia. Here are three quick mid-century bonus takes:

Jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams led a small group session in 1946 and turned out this delightful instrumental toe-tapper. We are going to have to come back and give Mary Lou her day in the spotlight, as she was a wonderful musician, and one of the rare women who got a lot of respect for her playing.

For those who prefer vocals, here is a 1948 recording by The Pied Pipers, backed by Paul Weston’s band. This record thoroughly updated the arrangement into one that swings the way something was supposed to swing in the early postwar years, and also brought the yellowed lyrics up to date. If the Pied Pipers sound familiar, they had previously been associated with the Tommy Dorsey band when Frank Sinatra was his featured singer. They got a little incidental credit when we looked at Sinatra’s early career as a band singer.

We cannot ignore one of the bigger modern hit versions of the song, done by the inimitable Spike Jones in 1950. Spike Jones’ version hewed closer in style and spirit to the original, although (of course) a little more lively. It’s not really jazz, but who doesn’t love Spike Jones?

“Yes, We Have No Bananas” is probably nearing the end of the road as a popular musical reference (if it has not done so already), but a hundred years is not a bad run for a song that was fairly unique to its place and time. I wonder if our modern banana shortage will turn out something anywhere near its quality or its durability? I’m betting no.

20 thoughts on “Yes, We Have No Bananas (Again)”

  1. Love this banana reality, a great Friday entry! Weirdly enough, I was always sort of “meh” about bananas. As we all know, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but in my old age, I found out it’s really a banana a day that does so. I started getting painful leg spasms (my mom used to call “Charlie horses”), and on further research, realized that this could be caused by a lack of potassium. I started drinking one of those protein drinks every other day, for the potassium, and eating a banana a day. This has become so acute, that if I skip a banana in a day, I’ll wake up the next in pain with leg spasms and knotted leg muscles! Hard to believe the simple banana is keeping this from happening. In addition, a lack of potassium can also be responsible for erratic heart beats, something I’ve never had but started developing in old age, until, of course, I started eating the magnificent banana! My blood work has never shown a lack of potassium, and yet, it seems whatever additional I’m getting from the banana is making a difference!

    I did not know that bananas cannot reproduce, so you learn something everyday! News you can use!

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    • Like you, I have always been kind of so-so on bananas, but they have been in our house during my married life more often than not. I have gotten those nighttime leg cramps a time or two, and when it happens you know it! I guess I should be eating more bananas too – so long as I can find them, anyway.

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    • Lee, amazingly remember this getting a lot of airplay in the late 60’s, even on rock stations! The main words in the chorus welded into my brain!

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    • Yes, bananas is always a great song topic. Always quality songs, of course. 🙂

      Even in the 1920’s, there was a follow-up “Yes, We Have No Bananas Blues”.

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  3. Peanut butter with diced bananas on toast!
    When we lived in Qatar we learned that Arabs think it is impolite to say ‘No’. I was getting some furniture recovered and when it was finished and delivered to my house, one ottoman was missing. Some time later, after repeated assurances from the shop owner that YES, he ‘remembered’ the ottoman, I rephrased the question. Did he run out of fabric and I would likely never see the ottoman again? He was visibly relieved that he could say YES, that was what had happened.

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  4. BTW, just finished the 725 page bio of Sonny Rollins (whew, and someone I actually saw live in the 1990’s), and listening to the Mary Williams “ Bananas” cut, it reminded me about how many times the book said they’d be wailing off on a tangent and including short sections from some of the weirdest and most kitsch pop songs during the “stretching out” sections. Just shows you that the greats had a broad idea of what made something interesting!

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  5. There were a lot of interesting factoids about bananas in this post that I never knew JP and I also didn’t know there was a current banana shortage. I like bananas, but at just the right stage of ripeness … never spotted nor mushy and not if they are not still tinged with green. I like peanut butter and banana sandwiches but never had that treat of fried PB&B sandwiches like Elvis. 🙂 My boss used to use this expression about older people “I hope they’re not buying green bananas.” I had never heard that expression before to be honest and didn’t care for it. I had heard of that song though and enjoyed hearing it again as well as seeing it on the player piano roll. That worked out perfectly that the song would celebrate its 100th birthday this year.

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    • I remember my grandfather repeating that old joke, which may have come from George Burns – “At my age I don’t buy green bananas.”

      I learned a lot about bananas too on this one.

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      • Ahh, I see. If they are older and referring to themself, that is a whole different thing. I used to like the show “Unwrapped” that appeared on the Food Channel about twenty years ago. They would delve into the origin of food and trace the journey to the grocer’s shelf.

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  7. I love the video of the player piano roll, especially the mechanical sounds as it comes to life. There’s something charming about old machinery in motion. Glad you added a little background on the Pied Pipers. I knew I’d heard them before, just not this track. Probably because I’m not a banana fan 🙂

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    • There was a time I really wanted an old player piano. It’s probably best it didn’t happen, now that I have reached an age where less is better.

      This was the first I ever heard that Pied Pipers record and it was a treat. I love the early postwar lyrics!

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  9. Interestingly enough, my two or three weekly shop grocery stores are awash with bananas, including a fine selection of organic ones for twenty five cents a finger. I asked them about a possible banana shortage and they said they haven’t heard anything, but the internet says it may or may not happen, and that the biggest problem is supply chain banana delivery. I have a sneaking suspicion that this may be more balderdash associated with trying to drive prices up post pandemic, to regain lost profit during those years. I’m taking a dim view of all “excuses” of supply chain problems, when even 4 years ago, there was zero problem at all getting anything, anywhere, at any time. Supply Chain problems, I wouldn’t imagine, would be responsible for many of my food purchases going up at least 30 to 60 percent! I some cases, literally doubling! Maybe “big banana” is trying to get in on the run away profits!

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