Lyrics for Haitian Divorce as interpreted by AbFab

Haitian Divorce Lyrics
Babs and Clean Willie were in love they said
So in love the preacher's face turned red
Soon everybody knew the thing was dead
He shouts, she bites, they wrangle through the night
She go crazy
Got to make a getaway
Papa say

CHORUS:
Oh - no hesitation
No tears and no hearts breakin'
No remorse
Oh - congratulations
This is your haitian divorce

She takes the taxi to the good hotel
Bon marché as far as she can tell
She drinks the zombie from the cocoa shell
She feels alright, she get it on tonight
Mister driver
Take me where the music play
Papa say

CHORUS

At the Grotto
In the greasy chair
Sits the Charlie with the lotion and the kinky hair
When she smiled, she said it all
The band was hot so
They danced the famous Merengue
Now we dolly back
Now we fade to black

Tearful reunion in the USA
Day by day those memories fade away
Some babies grow in a peculiar way
It changed, it grew, and everybody knew
Semi-mojo
Who's this kinky so-and-so?
Papa go

CHORUS

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qseep
01-27-2005

Rated 0 
Sounds like a hot-blooded couple who broke up right at the altar - only to get back together for some sex.

Apparently this happens a lot in Haiti?

Frankly, "Haitian Divorce" sounds like some kind of Mafia extermination technique.

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qseep
01-27-2005

Rated 0 
It does sound like a shotgun wedding... she was pregnant "it grew, and everybody knew", so they had to get married. But they weren't ready to get married so they fought on the altar and broke up.

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law2468
02-24-2005

Rated 0 
qseep, you need to listen to the lyrics and realize that Clean Willie and Babs is 'white folks'! The getaway that Babs mad was a weekend in Haiti. That's right... she got busy with 'the Charlie with the lotion and the kinky hair'.

Babs works it out of her system and returns for a 'Tearful reunion in the USA ' with Willie, with a one of a kind Hatian souvenier. No, not an STD, un enfant (baby). Remember, this song come from an era when AIDS was unknown, and condom use was pretty low.

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1 Reply
hubofhip
06-15-2005

Rated 0 
Dead on, Law. Just to go into some detail:

Babs and Willie were very much in love, to the point where their kiss at the altar was a little much for the priest (Babs and Clean Willie were in love they said/So in love the preacher's face turned red)

But, the marriage fell apart into one of domestic violence (Soon everybody knew the thing was dead/ He shouts, she bites, they wrangle through the night)

So, babs decides she has to get away, but instead of divorcing Willie, with all the emotional and financial difficulties a divorce brings, she decides to run away to Haiti (She go crazy/Got to make a getaway, Papa say: Oh - no hesitation/No tears and no hearts breakin', No remorse/Oh - congratulations
This is your Haitian Divorce)

She runs off with all their money, and lives the high life "for free": Bon Marche = "good buy" (She takes the taxi to the good hotel/Bon marché as far as she can tell/She drinks the zombie from the cocoa shell
She feels alright, she get it on tonight/Mister driver
Take me where the music play/Papa say)

So, she goes to The Grotto, and picks up a local and takes him home to REALLY get back at Willie. I love the fade to black reference, as if we are watching a movie...
(At the Grotto, In the greasy chair/Sits the Charlie with the lotion and the kinky hair/When she smiled, she said it all/The band was hot so/They danced the famous Merengue/Now we dolly back/Now we fade to black)

So, having gotten all this out of her system, Babs goes back to Willie, and theymove on with their lives together: (Tearful reunion in the USA/Day by day those memories fade away)

But Babs is carrying a child. In denial, Willie comes up with all kinds of reasons to believe that the baby is his (Some babies grow in a peculiar way), although everyone else knows the real situation (It changed, it grew, and everybody knew: Semi-mojo)

Until the baby is born, and Willie sees his kinky hair, and is confronted, and confronts Babs, with the truth (Who's this kinky so-and-so?)

Fantastic song.

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not 4 hire
12-29-2005

Rated 0 
i have a slightly different interperation of the song. specifically, the line that says "she drinks the zombie from the cocoa shell" makes me think that its not so much that she sleeps with him, but more that she was drugged and raped. this makes the line where they "fade to black" make a little more sense.
also, i think that in the end of the song, the words to the chorus take on new meaning, suggesting that clean willie kills babs when he discovers that the child isnt his. this is my take on the song, a little morbid but i think it fits.

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mollena
01-16-2006

Rated 0 
not4hire, a zombie is a drink, mixed tropical juices, rum, etc. I am bemused that you'd jump to the conclusion of rape...unless you are one of those people misguided enough to assume that there could be no way a white woman would sleep with a black man without the influence of drugs, alcohol and force. I'll not assume this is a racist idea, but it sure smacks of that stereotyping black men as leering "where the white women at?!" rapists.

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GreyBlueEyes
08-24-2006

Rated 0 
hubofhip--DEAD on.

Love this story.

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GreyBlueEyes
08-24-2006

Rated 0 
Well they certainly were Brenda and Eddie...

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GreyBlueEyes
08-25-2006

Rated 0 
Ugh I mean they were NOT Brenda and Eddie.

THEY got a divorce as a matter of course and they parted the closest of friends...so I heard.

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mark36
09-12-2006

Rated 0 
Here's the part that's odd to me. She goes to Haiti? Who goes to Haiti? I know this song is from the 70s, but I'm not even sure people went to Haiti on such trips even then...

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thedurable1
10-11-2006

Rated 0 
I am inclined to almost totally with hubofhip, with a bit of a twist. In answer to mark36: My understanding is that a "Haitian Divorce" is actually another term for an uncontestable unilateral divorce which can be had in Haiti with a 24 hour waiting period (no joke). In the old days that was pretty rare. In most US locations, people had to wait several weeks to several months. In addition there was the issue of courts, lawyers and possibly meesy settlement issues. In California we used tohave what we called a TJ (Tijuana) divorce. ie: a quicky uncontestable divorce AND a cheap vacation for one low price. I don't see how issues as violent as theirs could be resolved by a few day break from one another. They have what we call out here "unreconcilable differences". I think the whole idea of "take me where the music plays" was an attempt to lift her spirits after the actual divorce. I think she came back unmarried, but pregnant with, presummably, Clean Willie's unborn child. But, suprise, those baby curls didn't staighten out over time at all, they got kinkier!!!! Now, that's irony. I don't know of anyone named "Babs" or "Clean Willie", except maybe high soicety preppy types. In social circles a bi-racial child would be, in my in my estimation social suicide. She thinks she putting on over on him, and it it turns out that she got stuck in a high-class situation with a bi-racial child. Hoo-rah!!

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Earthling on Fire
07-22-2007

Rated 0 
I think thedurable1 has a point. "Babs" and "Clean Willie" both sound very British. In a US context wouldn't they sound New England posh?
By the way, is "willy" used a lot for "penis" in the US?

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cojo727
10-07-2007

Rated 0 
one of the best Steely Dan songs ever

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Nightvoice
12-19-2007

Rated 0 
This was one of their best lyrical offerings, despite its lack of airplay. Some very interesting observations here about the baby at the end that never dawned on me; I always thought it was just a passing reference and it never made sense to me. One thing that you have to keep in mind is the 70s nostalgia the song embodies. In the middle 1970s, Papa Doc Duvalier was the dictator of Haiti, and he was a crook. As brutal as he was to his own people, he was always cordial to the U. S. tourists and government. The song is in the reggae style of the time. So the chorus is basically an enticement by Papa Doc for tourists to forget their problems and come to Haiti to have them solved in a quickie divorce. I think the message of the song is that there can be long-term consequences from rash decisions, and that there is no such thing as an easy divorce. Very good observations about the baby, though; they helped.

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Danfan
02-19-2008

Rated 0 
I think the explanation by hubofhip has hit the proverbial nail on the head so hard its bent double. Well done. Love the line "Semi-Mojo whos this kinky so and so?" Lovely song that completely belies its rather sordid and sad story

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tjstone
01-10-2009

Rated 0 
Here's the facts from the lips of Fagen himself, which also may muddy the waters of the whole daterape drug angle - The following article appeared in the December 25, 1976 issue of Sounds -

"Well, the first few verses are plain enough. Babs and Clean Willy get married, right? But things don't work out somehow, and off they go to Haiti to grab themselves a quickie divorce. Then Babs heads off to some sleazy night club to drown her sorrows."
"If you've been paying attention, you'll know she's in a drugged stupor by now and probably doesn't know anything about it. She is later... er... impregnated by this exotic gentleman. Later she is reunited with Clean Willy and they have some rather bizarre offspring ("Who's this kinky so-and-so")
And then the chorus marks a second expedient divorce."

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Newfrontier
03-08-2009

Rated 0 
I think what is being forgotten here is what a Haitian divorce is...The reason people went to Haiti to get a divorce (back in the 50's and 60's mind you) was to get around US law, specifically State laws involving the need for both parties to agree to a divorce. A haitian divorce, which ironically was often accepted by US States afterthefact, is a uni-lateral divorce, meaning one party can divorce the other without their permission and/or signature. The woman goes alone in the story at the request of her father to get a quickee divorce in Haiti. She of course fails in that mission, but has an affair there and returns home to the States without haven gotten a divorce... but nine months later the woman has a child and it doesn't look at all like "Clean Willie"! The baby is half Haitian...The song ends with the babies background now clear and her father asing her to go to Haiti for a Haitian Divorce.

Great tune, excellent beat, written in the 70's

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jsaul
09-15-2009

Rated 0 
I think some of the other interpretations are most likely spot on. That said, I wanted to suggest a slight variation that could be wrong.

I suggest that the line "So in love the preacher's face turned red" should be taken to mean that the woman was so pregnant that everyone, even the priest, could tell they were having a shotgun wedding (as in they were forced into it because she was pregnant).

I take the "Soon everybody knew the thing was dead", to refer to the baby which could have died in childbirth or a miscarriage (or SIDS but that's not really the point). Once the baby is gone, the couple has no reason to stay together so she goes to Haiti for a quickie divorce.

Burt Bacharach wrote a song called "Mexican Divorce" played by The Drifters (as well as Ry Cooder) which I imagine Fagen and Becker were familiar with, so I think they decided to put their own spin on it. I had initially thought the 2nd verse was about getting an abortion, but that doesn't seem consistent.

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