I Think I Found the Only Copy of Mambo No. 4
Around four or five years ago I stopped into a local thrift store just to browse through their record section. I collect old vinyl from time to time, not because I’m a serious collector, but because it’s fun seeing what turns up. Usually I walk out with some forgotten country album, a compilation, or something from an artist I’ve never heard of. Every now and then, though, you stumble across something that makes you stop.
That day, I picked up a stack of maybe a dozen records. Most of them were exactly what you would expect, but buried in the middle was a record in just a plain white paper sleeve, no identifying artwork. The center label was plain yellow, and written in faded blue ink was:”Mambo 4 LBSD8″.
I honestly assumed it was somebody’s joke regarding Mambo No.5. Everybody knows Mambo No. 5, but I had never once heard anyone mention a Mambo No. 4 outside of memes on niche music groups online. My first thought was that maybe it was a parody somebody recorded years ago, or maybe a local garage band had made a novelty version and scribbled a funny title on the label. I almost left it sitting in the pile, but curiosity got the better of me. Worst case, I figured I might get a laugh out of whatever was on it.
When I got home, I cleaned the record, put it on my turntable, and dropped the needle. Within a few seconds, I knew this was not what I expected.
The song sounded unmistakably like Mambo No. 5. At the same time, it clearly was not. The melody was there, but everything else felt different. The tempo was noticeably slower, the horns were much less energetic, the rhythm was more subdued, and the vocals sounded rougher and more raspy.
The biggest difference, though, was the names.
Instead of “A little bit of Monica in my life,” I distinctly remember hearing “A little bit of Amanda in my life.” Later, there was a Debbie, and I am almost positive Michelle was in there somewhere too. I honestly cannot remember every name anymore, but I remember laughing because it felt like I knew exactly what song I was listening to while also feeling like I had never heard it before. I was still partially convinced this was some weird parody, but nothing was instantly funny, just insignificant lyric changes.
My next assumption was that I had stumbled across some obscure cover version, maybe something a local band had recorded for fun or an unofficial promotional recording that never went anywhere. Whatever it was, I figured somebody on the internet had probably documented it.
So I started searching. Discogs, collector forums, old vinyl databases, Reddit, Google. Nothing. There was not a single mention of “Mambo 4.” or “Mambo 4 LBSD8”. There were no alternate recordings, no demos, no collector discussions, and nothing that even remotely resembled what I had just listened to that Lou Bega had ever published either. Eventually, I gave up looking. I kept the record because it was unusual, but after a while I stopped thinking much about it.
A few months later, I happened to mention it to a coworker while we were talking about strange things we had found at thrift stores. He laughed at first, but then told me his uncle had worked at Lautstark back in the mid 80s, the German record label Lou Bega was signed with early in his career. I told him the whole story, mostly because I thought his uncle might get a kick out of it. Before we left work that day he said he would ask if there were ever any earlier takes of Mambo No. 5 that he remembered or any alternate recordings that fit the description.
A few days later my coworker walked up to me and said, “I talked to my uncle.” He told me that when he asked whether there had ever been earlier takes of Mambo No. 5, his uncle explained that artists often recorded multiple versions of songs before a final release. Different arrangements would be recorded, played for producers and executives, and narrowed down until everyone agreed on the strongest version. Then my coworker described the record I had found. He mentioned the slower tempo, the stripped-down arrangement, and the different list of names. According to him, his uncle just laughed a little before saying, “I remember hearing something like that once or twice.”
He explained that he vaguely remembered an alternate version floating around the studio years earlier. He could not remember what it was called, and he was not claiming it was the same recording I had found. He simply said it sounded very similar to something he remembered hearing during that period. As far as he knew, recordings like that were internal working cuts and were never intended to be commercially released. He was not confirming that I had found anything important. He simply could not think of another explanation that matched what I had described.
That conversation was enough to make me decide I should probably hang onto the record. I put it somewhere safe. Or at least, I thought I did. Life happened. I moved. Boxes were packed. Some things ended up in storage, and before long I completely forgot the record even existed. Then, just a few weeks ago, I was talking with someone about Lou Bega, and for whatever reason, the record popped back into my head. I decided it was finally time to dig it back out.
After searching through my house, I remembered that during one of my moves, I had taken several boxes over to my grandfather’s house because I did not have room for everything at the time. Sure enough, the box was still there. I opened it to find nothing but some old books and CDs alongside a white album sleeve. Unfortunately, I also discovered exactly where it had spent the last several years.
Apparently, my grandfather had decided that an old record that was collecting dust made the perfect surface to keep underneath the glass ashtray in his man cave. For years, it had quietly lived under an ashtray, collecting cigarette ash, coffee stains, and whatever else accumulated on the table. The vinyl had warped beyond repair. There were deep scratches across both sides. The center label had a perfectly circular brown stain where the ashtray had been sitting. Whether the record was actually anything special or not, there was absolutely no chance it would ever be played again.
Maybe it really was just some strange bootleg somebody made in a basement. Maybe it was an alternate studio recording that somehow escaped and eventually found its way into a thrift store. Or maybe I unknowingly owned the only surviving copy of “Mambo No. 4”. I guess we will never know.
If nothing else, I can say with complete confidence that my grandfather may have owned the world’s most exclusive ashtray coaster.
This article is a work of satirical fiction. While it references real people, places, and music, the events and story depicted are entirely fictional and intended solely for entertainment.