Mana Mana
“Do doo do do do….”
Unless you didn’t grow up in this country, I bet you now have a song in your head, namely the “Mahna mahna” song, which I know originally from the Muppet Show (see the picture on the right).
The reason I blogged this song is that I was sitting at home, and suddenly, for whatever reason, the song was in my head. Of course, I can sing along — who can’t? I can even picture the Muppets singing it. What I couldn’t do, was spell it. Throwing caution to the wind, though, I decided to go to Wikipedia and just type “mana mana” into it and see what happened.
The result was one of those things that makes the Internet worthwhile.
Not only did I get a result, which was amazing enough, but I learned so much about this song!
Did you know that:
- The song is actually called “Mah Nà Mah Nà”?
- The most popular spelling according to Google is “Mana mana”, followed by “Manamana” and “Mahna mahna”?
- The song contains no real words?
- That the song became famous after the Muppets performed it on the Ed Sullivan show?
- That the song was used on the first episode of The Muppets as its first sketch?
- The song was written by Italian film composer Piero Umiliani?
- That the song originally was used in a SWEDISH SOFT CORE PORN MOVIE!?!?!
- The the song was played over a lesbian BDSM scene?
The factoids took a bit of a left turn at the end there didn’t it?
If, like me, you now have an urge to listen to the song … here’s the Muppets singing it, as an MP3.
its posts like this that remind me why i read your site. and thank you; i now have that song in my head. i acctually bought the first season of the muppet show almost strictly for that skit.
And that’s one to grow on..
I have the song in my head now too…and it took me awhile to put the words to the lyrics…I think I’ve always sung it with a b…like banana! This was a popular camp song…one side would sing the first part and the other side would echo it back…”mana Then the person leading the song would call something out and we’d all repeat it but in a different tone…like really high, really low, crazy voice, etc.
Thank you for making the MP3 available.
Technically, someone else is providing the MP3, I’m just giving a link to their source. Bad form from a bandwidth perspective, but I am hoping they don’t mind. I love the song.
I have been searching for this song for years. Where can I get the original version? (Imagine trying to describe it to a DJ during a request show).