Haitian Divorce by Steely Dan

Album: The Royal Scam (1976)

License This Song

lyrics

artistfacts

Songfacts®:

You can go to Vegas for a quickie marriage, but what if you want a quickie divorce? In the early '70s, Haiti made it easy, allowing foreigners to divorce with hardly any restriction; the big sell was that only one member of the married party had to be present and request it.

For Haiti, this was a tourism ploy, as travel agents would send Americans looking for a quick and easy divorce to the island, where they would often spend some time on a resort. In many cases, these divorces were requested so that the person could immediately get remarried - a service Haiti also provided. So it was not uncommon for a married man to show up in Haiti with his mistress, get a divorce, and marry the new girl all in the course of a weekend.
Donald Fagan talked about the Haitian divorce in a 1976 interview with Sounds. Said Fagen: "It's a fierce and terrible ritual. I'll tell you that. You wouldn't want your sister to have a Haitian divorce, believe me. It was the quick divorce, without too much red tape. If you can say 'incompatibility of character' in French you're as good as gold. But we added a few elements to the ceremony itself."
In this song, it's the woman who goes to Haiti for her divorce. She has some fun while she is there, and presumably hooks up with a local - their sex scene is implied in cinematic terms in the lines:

Now we dolly back
Now we fade to black

When she returns to America, she is pregnant, as Fagen sings, "Some babies grow in a peculiar way."
The girl in this song drinks a zombie from a coconut shell, which at the time was a very typical island experience. A zombie is a rum-based cocktail that was popular at the time - an alternative to the piña colada.
Steely Dan used a talkbox on this track, which is the same processor Black Sabbath used on "Iron Man" to create the robotic sounds. In "Haitian Divorce," hired hand Dean Parks played the guitar, Walter Becker processed it though a talkbox to his specifications.

Comments: 10

AnonymousThe guitar solo was not played by Dean Parks but by Larry Carlton!
Dave Yelland from CornwallIron Man is absolutely not a talkbox. It is ring modulation. Given when it was recorded, most likely from an EMS VCS3 (the Dark side of the moon synth).
Chris from Springfield, IlHusband cheats. Wife wants a divorce. Her father says rich people don’t get divorced. So she cheats with a black dude (Haitian divorce) and gets pregnant with a mixed child, humiliating husband who then wants a divorce. Father says rich people don’t get divorced.
Drew from Somewhere In NyOld entry, but... "processed it through a talkbox to his specifications." To clarify: Walter Becker ran an output from the original solo track through a Talk Box, which basically is a speaker in a box that blows air pressure (the sound) up a tube into the user's mouth. Becker then articulated his jaw and lips to shape the sound (Processing?), which then exited his mouth and was picked up by a microphone, and recorded to an alternate track.
Sam from GenevaThe ‘Papa’ in the song is Papa Doc, Haiti’s then dictator who promoted tourism packages that threw-in the ‘divorce’. The ironic rif on paternity is a given.
Paul Corusoe from United States“Haitian Divorce” is Steely Dan’s musical soap opera about the travails of a spoiled young woman acting on the advise of her father by seeking a quick divorce in Haiti to end her unhappy, mutually abusive marriage. Sung in Donald Fagan’s inimitable sardonic style (no sympathy whatsoever for any of the characters in this nasty little tale) the young woman’s situation goes from bad to worse when she returns from Haiti to her husband in the U.S. without a divorce, and pregnant as the result of a one night stand with a man she met in a Haitian club. When the child is born, her husband angrily questions her about its paternity, and gossip spreads among the couple’s acquaintances.
Bnw from PortlandO.K. she's pregnant, who's is it, "Who's this kinky so and so?"
Kuen-wah Cheung from BrightonAlso the first Steely Dan song I ever heard. On Radio 5. Happily I managed to record it and it took me a year or so later to discover the name of the band, and then began buying their music.
James Watts from BarnetThe first SD song I ever heard - I was playing pool in the Plough pub near Brentwood and it blew me away - what a team!
Nathe from Sl,utThis is a great description. Especially for those who are too young to remember the 70’s

see more comments

More Songfacts:

Paradise By The Dashboard LightMeat Loaf

Baseball Hall-of-Famer Phil Rizzuto is the announcer on Meat Loaf's "Paradise By the Dashboard Light." Rizzuto used to broadcast games for his former team, the Yankees.

Candy GirlNew Edition

In the UK, the first #1 hit with a rap was "Candy Girl" by the American boy band New Edition in 1983.

Kickstart My HeartMötley Crüe

"Kickstart My Heart" is about all the ways Motley Crue gets their blood flowing without drugs. It was inspired by their bass player Nikki Sixx, who claimed he had to be revived with a shot of adrenaline to the heart after an overdose.

Against The WindBob Seger

Bob Seger's "Against The Wind" has the famous mind-bending line, "Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then." Seger was going to cut it, but his Eagles buddies Glenn Frey and Don Henley told him it was the best line in the song.

Gangnam StylePsy

"Gangnam Style" refers to a section of Seoul, South Korea, that is very fashionable. The guy in the song has all the right moves and loves the ladies.

The PowerSnap!

Snap! were two German producers. When they needed a rapper, they found one on the American army base there and had him rap on "The Power."