During the early 1970s when this song was written and performed by Yatta Zoe, one Monrovia newspaper described the poisonous household detergent Lysol as a "disappointment cure.” Lysol was the brand name for a liquid detergent that was sold in a small bottle with a warning label that read “Poisonous! Do not drink!” next to a graphic image of a skull with crossbones. Sometimes after getting pregnant, young girls in Monrovia due to the social stigma of pregnancy outside of marriage would, in despair, either drink poisonous Lysol in order to try to abort the pregnancy (abortion was still illegal), or if they were even more desperate, would try to commit suicide by drinking the poisonous liquid. The bottle had a skull and crossbones symbol on the label with the warning "poison", so it was obvious that it was dangerous to ingest.
In this song, Zoe compares the teenage girl’s life to gbapleh, a tiny, finger-sized, bony saltwater fish that was sold by fishmongers. Gbapleh was sold extremely cheaply; hence the song’s message to the young women was “don’t throw your life away for nothing.” Coupled with extant newspaper documentation, it is clear that Zoe was clearly appealing to the general listening public through her song in an attempt to halt this deadly trend. The lyrics plaintively pleaded…

"Monrovia young girls stop drinking Lysol,
Monrovia young girls stop drinking Lysol,
For the sake of gbapleh, stop drinking Lysol
For the sake of nothing stop drinking Lysol"

-from the dissertation of Dr. Timothy D. L. Nevin (2010)