SUGAR HILL: poetry of the dead
The Expected and the Unexpected.
In Act 1, Scene 1, the English lyrics of ‘Supernatural Voodoo Woman’ come from the 1974 vinyl release of the Sugar Hill Soundtrack, as preformed by The Originals (arranged by DePitte; written by Fekaris). If this is unavailable, an original composition is fine, provided that it reflects early Zombie cinema (originating in the 1930s) focusing on ‘old-school’ aesthetic: Haitian vodoun-driven tales of enslaved, mindless shambling husks. Key classics include White Zombie (1932) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943), but not the genre-defining Night of the Living Dead (1968), which shifted the focus to flesh-eating ghouls. The Zombies in Sugar Hill (1974) are ashy-blue, with skull-like faces, bulging chrome/ silver balls for eyes and bodies covered in dirt and cobwebs, often seen wearing old slave chains and wielding machetes.
Another choice, depending on copyright laws, might be Tami Lynn's 1971 Funk/Soul version of ‘Mojo Hannah’ (Cotillion Records; produced by Shapiro and Wexler; written by Williams, Paul and Paul). I include the lyrics here, as they say in many a Tarot reading, for ‘entertainment value,’ only:
I'm taking four strands of your hair And a five dollar bill I'm gonna put it in a letter, I'm gonna drop it in the mail I'm gonna send it to a woman That a friend of mine told me about She's a Gumbo Cooker and an Alligator Hooker Make a Dead Man jump and shout Talking about a woman named Hannah Down in Louisiana Oh, she's a Mojo worker She's gonna work that thing for me She's gonna end my misery And I know he's coming on home soon… She don't wear fancy stitches All she wears is a man's britches And now and then she takes a little sip She's got a forty-five on her hip She's built a strong reputation in the Southern land Saturday night about twelve o'clock You know she hoodoos the Voodoo Man… Talking about a woman named Hannah Down in Louisiana Oh, she's a Mojo worker She's gonna work that thing for me She's gonna end my misery And I know, I know, I know that he's coming on home to you…
