If you know today’s classic song of the day, chances are you know a little French, in particular the line Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir? That’s right, the song is “Lady Marmalade” and it was a big hit for the group Labelle.
“Lady Marmalade” was written by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan. Crewe was a member of the Four Seasons and wrote or co-wrote many of their big hits, including “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” and “My Eyes Adored You.” Kenny Nolan is a L.A.-based songwriter most famous for writing and performing the 1976 hit, “I Like Dreaming.”
The song “Lady Marmalade” is about a prostitute in New Orleans. That French phrase in the song roughly translates to Do you want to sleep with me, tonight? Believe it or not, Patti Labelle claims she didn’t know what the song was really about until after her group made the recording. She recalls it this way:
“…with ‘Lady Marmalade’ I swear I had no idea for a while what it meant, until I asked Bob Crewe, who recorded it, ‘what’s voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?’ He told me, ‘Oh gosh’, I said, ‘what will my mother think?'”
Labelle wasn’t the first group to record “Lady Marmalade.” That honor went to a studio group dubbed the Eleventh Hour, who recorded a demo of the song. Bob Crewe played that demo for New Orleans producer Allen Toussaint, who decided to record the song with Labelle.
Labelle’s version of “Lady Marmalade,” produced by Toussaint, was released as a single in November of 1974. It went all the way to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (for five weeks!) and Hot R&B Songs charts. The track sold more than a million copies and was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry.
In 1998, the British girl group All Saints released a cover of “Lady Marmalade” that went to #1 on the UK Singles chart. That was followed in 2001 by an all-star version of the song performed by Christina Aguilera, Pink, Mya, and Lil’ Kim for the Moulin Rouge soundtrack; that single also scored the #1 position on the Billboard Hot 100, also for five weeks, just like the original.
Labelle, originally known as Patti Labelle and the Blue Bells, consisted of Patti Labelle, Sarah Dash, and Nona Hendryx. Their vocals on “Lady Marmalade” were backed by the legendary New Orleans band the Meters, themselves known for the classic instrumental, “Cissy Strut.”
And here’s your daily bonus video of the day, Labelle performing “Lady Marmalade” live on the April 18, 1975, episode of The Midnight Special. Gitchie, gitchie, ya-ya, here!
