"East St. Louis Toodle-oo"

[James Harbeck]

>This, as the more mature of us know, is the name of an old jam by
>"Duke" Ellington.

Some of us will think of this tune first in its version by Steely Dan
on _Pretzel Logic_. Alas, that record (CD) does not come with
pronunciation guides. I do notice an interesting detail in the song
listings on the back cover, though: the titles are in all caps, but
the second O in in oo is lower-case: "TOODLE-Oo." It's the only
lower-case letter in the whole bunch. No idea why. Typographical
screwup is possible.

I found a lyrics site with a listing for the song...
http://www.lyricsbay.com/steely_dan_east_st_louis_toodle_oo_lyrics-dan_steely.html
(don't bother!).

So I went to YouTube to listen to introductions in live performances.
No luck so far, The British college boys in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=559GVatcGKs&feature=related say it
with the [u]s. I haven't found any videos with Ellington -- or Steely
Dan -- introducing it. So far.

Re: the "todalo" spelling: it's not impossible that they meant this
spelling to represent [tudalu] -- I think of such oddities as the
skier Picabo Street ([pikabu]). There is that frequent assumption
that marked forms must be correct; if a person hears a name
pronounced weirdly somewhere, there's a good chance they'll assume
the weird pronunciation must be correct, or why would it be used.
There's some chance -- I have no idea how much -- that something
similar is operating with that spelling. On the other hand, it could
indeed be evidence for the currency of the pronunciation you cite, of
course!

James Harbeck.

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