Duke, Duke, Duke

Ain't it shocking that Gene Chandler's excellent song is now almost half a century old?  Seems like just yesterday.

This be the verse in its full splendor.   

Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl

Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl

As I walk through this world
Nothing can stop the Duke of Earl
And you, you are my girl
And no one can hurt you, oh no
Yes, I'm gonna love you
Come on let me hold you darlin'
'Cause I'm the Duke of Earl.

And when I hold you
You will be my Duchess, Duchess of Earl
We'll walk through my dukedom
And the paradise we will share.

Yes, oh, I
I'm gonna love you
Nothing can stop me now
'Cause I'm the Duke of Earl.

Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl

I'm gonna love you
Nothing can stop me now
'Cause I'm the Duke of Earl.

1)  "Duke of Earl" is classic, though late, doo-wop. It's lineally descended from songs in which a supporting male quartet sang meaningless syllables: doo wop, wop, wop. In this revisiting of the genre, nonsense doo doo doo de wop has been superseded by words that carry meaning of a sort: duke duke duke of earl. Return we now to the pages of history: in their turn, doo wop quartets were themselves secular offspring of gospel quartets, where a reverent foursome would sing do lord do lord, do lordy lord (a good example: the unnamed quartet supporting Georgia Peach in "Do Lord Send Me").

2)  It's a fascinating process: Gene Chandler's replacement of doo doo with duke duke is in fact a return to the roots, except that the previous and inherent religious content has undergone secularization. "Lord" has become "Duke," while the heaven of gospel has become the "dukedom" of doo-wop.

3.  It's easy to deride the naive aristocratic title "Duke of Earl"; but would the song preserve its meaning if it were "Duke of Buckingham?" "Earl" may sound silly, but because it's a generic title rather than a specific one it carries allegorical significance."Duke of Earl" is no one and therefore everyone. 

4.  It's entirely likely that the word "earl" was chosen because of it echoes "lord": liquids "r" and 'l" and unemphatic vowel. 

5.  The first line of the lyric --"As I walk through this world"-- introduces a secularized religious motif (an inheritance from the song's gospel forbears). Some will recall the opening sentence of the most famous of all religious allegories, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1672): "As I walked through the wilderness of this world."  Gene Chandler, walking through this world, is reborn just as Christian was reborn in the classic allegory. Not religiously, but in a worldly way. He is not saved;  he is duked.

6.  What is the significance of aggressive "nothing can stop me now?" What obstacles stopped the Duke of Earl in the past, before his duking?  The triumphalist language is highly developed but the obstacles remain vague and unarticulated. Audiences find their own meaning in the lacuna, but indignities historically suffered by the black underclass lurk only slightly below the surface of the lyric.

7.  The transformation from a previous but unknown and unarticulated existence to an aristocratic, unstoppable Duke of Earl takes place offstage, nor is any explanation offered for the metamorphosis. It's entirely magical.

8.  Because it's magic, it's pure fantasy. Pastoral fantasy in fact, which, curiously, is simultaneously primitive ("paradise") and sophisticated ("dukedom").

9. But it's a shared paradise: the duke along with his duchess. The retreat to domesticity is almost Victorian: "ah love, let us be true/ To one another...."  This particular Duke does not know that "Two paradises were in one/ To live in paradise alone."

10.  The Duke retreats to domesticity and ayet he seems to stake out ("nothing can stop me now") new territory to conquer, in which regard the spacious lyric seems to embody contradictory or even incoherent vectors of thought. However, the enthusiasm of the singing obliterates the ambiguity of the lyric; in sum, the song is remarkably optimistic -- which is just one reason for its continued popularity. 

Comments

[Jon Pastor]

"It's entirely likely that the word "earl" was chosen because of it echoes "lord": liquids "r" and 'l" and unemphatic vowel. "

Not at all likely. It's absolutely CERTAIN that "Earl" refers to Earl Edwards, Gene Dixon's partner in The Dukays (Gene Dixon became Gene Chandler). Look it up.

[Ben]

Nice very demonstrative, It's like your teaching me what I want to learn.

[n]

very enlightening. please tackle "da doo ron ron"