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"Ahab the Arab" is a novelty song written and recorded by Ray Stevens in 1962. In the song, Arab is pronounced "Ay-rab" to rhyme with Ahab. The hero of the story is Clyde the camel and Stevens has made references to Clyde numerous times throughout his career. It followed Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills becoming his second top 40 hit. It reached number five on Billboard's Hot 100 and number nine on the Billboard R&B chart. It remains one of the best selling records of Stevens' career. Stevens has recorded the song at least three times and there have also been edited versions. == Lyrics == The song portrays a "sheik of the burning sands" named Ahab. He is highly decorated with jewelry, and every night he hops on his camel named Clyde on his way to see Fatima, who is the best dancer in the Sultan's harem. Fatima is described with a modified quote from the 1909 hit, "I've Got Rings On My Fingers": "with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes and a bone in her nose, ho ho". During the ride, Ahab "speaks" (actually, sings/chants in a pseudo Middle Eastern style) in mock Arabic. (A later version adds the advertising catch phrase "Sold, American!" to the end of one chant. This is perhaps due to a Kinky Friedman (famous for the song and album Sold American) cover version which also added those lines). When Ahab finds Fatima in her tent, she is "eating on a raisin, and a grape, and an apricot, and a pomegranate, a bowl of chitterlings, two bananas, three Hershey bars, and sipping on an RC Cola, listenin' to her transistor, watchin' the Grand Ole Opry, and readin' ''Mad Magazine'' while she sung, 'Does your chewing gum lose its flavor?'" The second time that Ahab speaks in his phony Arabic chant, the translation is, "Let's twist again like we did last summer, baby!"—a line from a song by Chubby Checker. Ahab loves Fatima, which apparently doesn't sit too well with the Sultan, and later prompts an escape attempt, which does succeed, because Clyde was the fastest camel in the desert, and they "lived happily ever after". (The original single version was edited and does not mention the escape attempt at all, instead ending the song with Fatima saying, "Crazy, baby!")〔("Ahab the Arab" ), Mad Music Archive.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ahab the Arab」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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