Basis
The song is based both musically and lyrically on Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon's 1927 "Willie the Weeper" (Bette Davis sings this version in The Cabin in the Cotton). The lyrics are heavily laden with drug references. The character "Smokey" is described as "cokey" meaning a user of cocaine; the phrase "kicking the gong around" was a slang reference to smoking opium.
Read more about this topic: Minnie The Moocher
Famous quotes containing the word basis:
“Brutus. How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,
That now on Pompey’s basis lies along,
No worthier than the dust!
Cassius. So oft as that shall be,
So often shall the knot of us be called
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