"Egyptian Shumba" is one of the greatest song ever recorded. It opens with a standard early 60s "wall of sound," including drums, bass, and a strangely exotic electric guitar. But the hook comes from a teasingly high keyboard that sounds like a circus calliope, as the forgotten girl group, the Tammys, comes in with a fast nonsense chorus.

"Shimmy shimmy shimmy, shy-eye missy-nis."

The slow, low verse trades places with the nonsense words, as the bass and drums lay down a complicated rhythm. The backing singers go high, wailing "Way down in Egypt la-a-and" - and then the song melts down into pandemonium.

Seriously, that's the only way to describe it - wild, primal pandemonium. First there's monkey noises, and then screeches, filling out the entirety of the chorus, except for a shout at the end of each line. ("Egyptian Shumba!") It's a breath-taking moment of raw rock energy. And then the cool girl group non-chalantly continues with the next verse, as though nothing happened.

"I'm gonna make that dream come real. I'm gonna dance the way I feel...."

The jungle noises have created electricity, and there's more startling moments to come. The bands recreate the pandemonium a second time, right on schedule. But then - one minute in - there's a third surprise when the song switches to an unpredictable bridge. The calliope taunts, and the vocalists answer, saying that they hear the drum beats in their sleep, and warning that their heart starts to beat. But then the lead starts wavering melodramatically between two notes. "Ho-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh." This continues for eight measures, and the song seems to abandon words altogether for raw emotion.

I wanna dance (oh!)
I wanna dance (oh!)
I wanna dance (oh!)
I wanna dance (oh!)
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance,
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance....

And then the jungle noises return.

It's a rare and unappreciated track, usually found only on compilation albums of 1960s girl groups (like "One Kiss Can Lead To Another" and "Girls Go Zonk.") But when I finally discovered the song, I realized that it always made me want to dance. There's only a few web pages on the internet that acknowledge the song's existence, even though the Tammys were the original backing band for singer Lou Christie. But when they a U.K. record label collected together the best singles of both Christie and the Tammys into an album, there was only one thing to call it.

"Egyptian Shumba."

Learn more about this author, Moe Zilla.
Click here to send author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Song reviews: Egyptian Shumba, by the Tammys?
We want to hear your view. Write now!