Sometime around 1987, our whole family went on a trip to the Club Med village at Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic. Each of the big trips we took (about biennially) left lasting impressions on me, and the Club Med experience completely floored me. There is so much I did there that I have never done since (all kinds of water sports, an aborted attempt at the trapeeze). But as anyone who’s been to a Club Med village knows too well, one of the staples of the experience is what’s called “Crazy Signs”–silly dances done to music I didn’t recognize when I was a tot. There were three songs that got played after the show every night, and everyone in the village was invited to join in–you just watched until you learned the dances, and then you felt like part of the club.
I heard one of the songs, Ottawan’s “Hands Up” twice this weekend while in Vilnius (at two different bars–311 and Mojito naktys).
The flashback of over 20 years made me finally decide to once and for all solve a different mystery of my childhood pertaining to Club Med. “Hands Up”‘s dance I found boring and not terribly fun, but the other two songs had more involved moves. One of them, “Agadou,” then became a bit of a claim to fame for me as I taught it, as a 12 year old, to 1000-odd Lithuanian scouts at the 1988 Jamboree. I didn’t know the words, but it didn’t matter–my gibberish proved to be useful enough, and everyone loved the ass-tapping (literal) aspects of the dance. And though people have asked me about the song, I haven’t been able to say anything other than “it’s a Club Med thing. I dunno.”
Here’s a recording of the song that’s similar to the version I learned:
Now here’s a video of some annihilated people doing a reasonable impression of the Club Med version of the dance, which is what I taught the scouts:
And then, as with everything at all catchy, the song has been turned into a techno disaster, to which these two young women in bikinis dance in what looks like a travel agent’s office. “Filles folles,” indeed.
Finally, here are the lyrics to the song, with my bastardized version underneath:
A-ga-dou dou dou pouss’ l’ananas et mouds l’café x2
Tap’ la pomm’ tap’ la poir’ pouss’ l’ananas et mouds l’café x2
L’an dernier à Tahiti une jolie vahiné
Avec son ukulélé ma vraiment ukulélé
Ell’ vendait de fort beaux fruits avec son ukulélé
Quand on les avait choisis
Y’avait plus qu’a les manger
The version I taught:
A-ga-dou-dou-dou pousterai mon café x2
Tap’ le (h)eau, tap’ le bum pousterai mon café x2
A-loua-lou couré-é, A-loua-lou couré-é
A-loua-lou couré-é, A-loua-wé-é-é-é
As an amusing sidenote: part of why it took me forever to find the details about “Agadou” online (I have tried in the past) was because I let my mom convince me 23 years ago that “dou” was actually “doux,” which broke any google efforts.
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