Tally Me Ba-whatsits?

The weekend is coming and I'm ready for it to tally me banana. I have no idea what song's about, actually. Why do you need someone to tally your bananas for you? (I'm assuming this is some sort of banana plantation situation. (Note to self: in the future make a pun about a banana plantaintation)) If you can't tally your own bananas, you're either drunk or incompetent. In either case, there's no place for you at a banana plantation. And if you CAN tally your own bananas but your employer won't let you, then your employer clearly has trust issues. Quick, get those people to a ropes course!

One thing I'm almost scared to mention here is that rules for counting bananas could be different from regular counting. You may have to count in hexadecimal or measure by the banana bushel or something. In that case, I understand why you'd need a banana tallier; that's some pretty specific expertise. It wouldn't be cost efficient to train everyone in the ways of banana tallying. No, definitely save that one for the more ambitious types. Work hard and you go from banana picker to banana tallier. Work even harder and you go from banana tallier to tallier of talliers. See where this is going? I don't think you do, because once you hit that rank, you start your own plantation!

I just checked the actual lyrics for the song and I have a lot more questions now. For one thing, this guy is saying that when day light comes, he wants to go home. Why is he picking bananas in the middle of the night? I thought that was the first rule of fruit picking: pick during daylight. There's also a line in there that goes, "Hide the deadly black tarantula". Exactly what in the hell is going on at this place? They're picking bananas at night amidst a bunch of poisonous spiders, and then they're not allowed to count what they picked. It sounds like the type of banana picking that goes on in a Lebanese POW camp. If Harry Belafonte ever comes up to you and asks if you want a job out in the fresh air, run.