Easy question for the english speaking folks out there:
Is it
“Jambalaya (On the Bayou)”
or
“Jambalaya (on the Bayou)”
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Hmm, despite a recent edit of mine (I think), maybe it’s the first.
The question is whether the title is a single phrase (with the second part optional) or two disconnected phrases. I had assumed the first, which would mean lower case “on”, but it never actually appears all at once in the lyrics: https://genius.com/Hank-williams-jambalaya-on-the-bayou-lyrics
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However, the compound words result in a meaningful title, even in the lyrics’ context. I would have seen it as one (extended) sentence, but it is undoubtedly a borderline case, because two separate titles would also produce meaningful titles.
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For me, the lyrics make it clear that “On the Bayou” is an alternative title to “Jambalaya.” I would leave it at “Jambalaya (On the Bayou”).
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In BMI it is one long phrase “JAMBALAYA ON THE BAYOU” (BMI always show uppercase), with alternate titles of
JAMBALAYA
JAM BOWL LIAR
DAS IST BIO
JAMBALAJA
KVETY DEJ
JAMBALAYA ALS PANTANS
KONTRI
ES PRALINE
JUMBALAYA
You could “assume” from this that the original title is “Jambalaya on the Bayou”, but BMI gets things wrong all the time. A country artist (60’s/70’s) I was talking to said back in the day before all the “electronics” they simply turned in a piece of paper with their name and the song name on it. Due to handwriting you got different versions of the artists names.
I go with “Jambalaya (On the Bayou)” … thanks all
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Speaking of Jambalaya: it’s been widely translated/adapted in other languages, usually with the shortened version of the title. The original version has also been frequently recorded under the shortened title. As a result, when trying to match one of those recordings to the work, the original doesn’t even show up in the first page of results:
Is there any way to get Williams’ original composition higher? It would cut down on a lot of mis-linked recordings.
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