Indeed, "A beautiful bunch of ripe bananas hides the deadly black tarantula" would indeed be more in line with the "official" US dialect of English. But part o

Indeed, "A beautiful bunch of ripe bananas hides the deadly black tarantula" would indeed be more in line with the "official" US dialect of English. But part of Belafonte's goal in writing the song was to honor his Jamaican heritage; so he wrote the song in the dialect of the people who would be doing the work described. Hence "Daylight come and me wan' go home" rather than "Daylight is coming and I want to go home"; "tally me bananas" rather than "tally my bananas", and "hide" rather than "hides".