"The Duck's Yas-Yas-Yas" or "The Duck's Yas Yas Yas" is a hokum jazz-blues song, originally recorded by James "Stump" Johnson, but the most well known version was recorded by Oliver Cobb and his Rhythm Kings.
The song is perhaps best known for the following lyrics:
"Mama bought a rooster
She thought it was a duck
She served it at the table with its legs straight up"
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"The Duck's Yas Yas Yas" was originally recorded in the origin of St. Louis by pianist James "Stump" Johnson in late 1928 or January 1929. He recorded the tune at least three times in his career. Blues singer Tampa Red and Thomas A. Dorsey also recorded a version on May 13, 1929.
Oliver Cobb recorded the song on August 16, 1929, before he died suddenly the next year. Eddie Johnson and The Crackerjacks recorded a cover of the song in 1932. In 1939, Tommy McClennan used some of the lyrics in his song "Bottle It Up and Go". It has been covered by The Three Peppers and by King Perry & His Pied Pipers (1951) in a hardly recognizable clean version. The song has also been performed by American folk singer Dave Van Ronk as "Yas Yas Yas" on his album Van Ronk Sings (1961).
The song was very popular in whorehouses before it was recorded and has a strong sexual innuendo. "Yas Yas" was a common euphemism in blues hokum songs for ass. The lyrics of the song exist in many variations, so it is not easy to quote from a definitive version. "The Duck's Yas-Yas-Yas" tells in most versions how the men in Market Street "all do the Georgia Rub" while women stand in line with their "big washed duck" (although in some versions it is the other way around. And sometimes the "big washed duck" is referenced to as "a big wash tub"). The gravy or liquor on the duck's yas-yas-yas could be a euphemism for sweat or even sperm. Other lines from the lyrics also clearly reference sex, prostitutes and brothels. Therefore it can be classified as a hokum or a dirty blues song.
A major artist from the Bahamas, Blind Blake & his Royal Victoria Hotel Calypso Band, recorded a version of the song under the name "Yes! Yes! Yes!" (released on Miami's Art Records label in 1951). John Lee Hooker used the first lines of the song in several of his interpretations of "Bottle Up and Go".
Underground cartoonist Robert Crumb quoted the song in his comic strip album Zap Comix, nr. 0 in 1967. It is quoted in the first panel of a story called "Ducks Yas Yas". He also recorded the tune in 1972 with his band, the Good Tone Banjo Boys, on a transparent red vinyl record that was cut (unusually for that period) at 78rpm; this may have been the only 78rpm record ever released in stereo.
The Duck's Yas-Yas-Ya is also referenced on Captain Beefheart's album Trout Mask Replica (1969), on the track "Old Fart At Play", where Beefheart sings the following lines: "Momma licked 'er lips like uh cat / Pecked the ground like uh rooster / Pivoted like uh duck", featuring all three protagonists from the most famous line of the blues song.