Haitian Divorce

Album: The Royal Scam (1976)
Play Video
  • 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 march¨¦ 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] Writer/s: DONALD JAY FAGEN, WALTER CARL BECKER
    Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 10

  • AnonymousThe guitar solo was not played by Dean Parks but by Larry Carlton!
  • Dave Yelland from CornwallIron Man is absolutely not a talkbox. It is ring modulation. Given when it was recorded, most likely from an EMS VCS3 (the Dark side of the moon synth).
  • Chris from Springfield, IlHusband cheats. Wife wants a divorce. Her father says rich people don’t get divorced. So she cheats with a black dude (Haitian divorce) and gets pregnant with a mixed child, humiliating husband who then wants a divorce. Father says rich people don’t get divorced.
  • Drew from Somewhere In NyOld entry, but... "processed it through a talkbox to his specifications." To clarify: Walter Becker ran an output from the original solo track through a Talk Box, which basically is a speaker in a box that blows air pressure (the sound) up a tube into the user's mouth. Becker then articulated his jaw and lips to shape the sound (Processing?), which then exited his mouth and was picked up by a microphone, and recorded to an alternate track.
  • Sam from GenevaThe ‘Papa’ in the song is Papa Doc, Haiti’s then dictator who promoted tourism packages that threw-in the ‘divorce’. The ironic rif on paternity is a given.
  • Paul Corusoe from United States“Haitian Divorce” is Steely Dan’s musical soap opera about the travails of a spoiled young woman acting on the advise of her father by seeking a quick divorce in Haiti to end her unhappy, mutually abusive marriage. Sung in Donald Fagan’s inimitable sardonic style (no sympathy whatsoever for any of the characters in this nasty little tale) the young woman’s situation goes from bad to worse when she returns from Haiti to her husband in the U.S. without a divorce, and pregnant as the result of a one night stand with a man she met in a Haitian club. When the child is born, her husband angrily questions her about its paternity, and gossip spreads among the couple’s acquaintances.
  • Bnw from PortlandO.K. she's pregnant, who's is it, "Who's this kinky so and so?"
  • Kuen-wah Cheung from BrightonAlso the first Steely Dan song I ever heard. On Radio 5. Happily I managed to record it and it took me a year or so later to discover the name of the band, and then began buying their music.
  • James Watts from BarnetThe first SD song I ever heard - I was playing pool in the Plough pub near Brentwood and it blew me away - what a team!
  • Nathe from Sl,utThis is a great description. Especially for those who are too young to remember the 70’s
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Church Lyrics

Church LyricsMusic Quiz

Here is the church, here is the steeple - see if you can identify these lyrics that reference church.

Don Felder

Don FelderSongwriter Interviews

Don breaks down "Hotel California" and other songs he wrote as a member of the Eagles. Now we know where the "warm smell of colitas" came from.

Songs in Famous Movie Scenes: '80s Edition

Songs in Famous Movie Scenes: '80s EditionMusic Quiz

You know the scenes - Tom Cruise in his own pants-off dance off, Molly Ringwald celebrating her birthday - but do you remember what song is playing?

Philip Cody

Philip CodySongwriter Interviews

A talented lyricist, Philip helped revive Neil Sedaka's career with the words to "Laughter In The Rain" and "Bad Blood."

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In Songs

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In SongsSong Writing

Songs where something goes horribly wrong (literally or metaphorically), and help is needed right away.

Mike Campbell

Mike CampbellSongwriter Interviews

Mike is lead guitarist with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and co-writer of classic songs like "Boys Of Summer," "Refugee" and "The Heart Of The Matter."