Big Truck Song Download
Brianna Mccomas
This song is fucked up. It fucking sucks. DON'T be that guy. If you want to help victims, or survivors. Don't take away their choice and agency. Just saying, that's not how you step up for someone, that's how you trample them.
"Nigger Love A Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!" merits the distinction of the most racist song title in America. Released in March 1916 by Columbia Records, it was written by actor Harry C. Browne and played on the familiar depiction of black people as mindless beasts of burden greedily devouring slices of watermelon.
I came across this gem while researching racial stereotypes. I was a bit conflicted over whether the song warranted a listen. Admittedly, though, beneath my righteous indignation, I was rather curious about how century-old, overt racism sounded and slightly amused by the farcical title. When I started the song, the music that tumbled from the speakers was that of the ever-recognizable jingle of the ice cream truck. (For the record, not all ice cream trucks play this same song, but a great many of them do.)
I wondered how such a prejudiced song could have become the anthem of ice cream and childhood summers. I learned that though Browne was fairly creative in his lyrics, the song's premise and its melody are nearly as old as America itself. As often happens with matters of race, something that is rather vanilla in origin is co-opted and sprinkled with malice along the way.
For his creation, Browne simply used the well-known melody of the early 19th century song "Turkey in the Straw," which dates to the even older and traditional British song "The (Old) Rose Tree." The tune was brought to America's colonies by Scots-Irish immigrants who settled along the Appalachian Trail and added lyrics that mirrored their new lifestyle.
The first and natural inclination, of course, is to assume that the ice cream truck song is simply paying homage to "Turkey in the Straw," but the melody reached the nation only after it was appropriated by traveling blackface minstrel shows. There is simply no divorcing the song from the dozens of decades it was almost exclusively used for coming up with new ways to ridicule, and profit from, black people.
The ice cream crossover happened concurrently: 19th century ice cream parlors played the popular minstrel songs of the day. After World War II, the advent of the automobile and the ensuing sprawl required parlors to devise a way to take their products to customers. Ice cream trucks were the solution, and a music box was installed in them as a way to announce their presence in neighborhoods. Naturally, the traditional minstrel tunes of the previous century were employed to evoke the memorable parlor experience.
Here in the nation's capital, the cherry blossoms have come and gone. This means the warm weather will soon bring out the ice cream trucks, and I'll be confronted once again by their inconvenient truth. It's not new knowledge that matters of race permeate the depths of our history and infiltrate the most innocent of experiences, even the simple pleasure of ice cream (who can forget Eddie Murphy's famous, NSFW routine about the poor black experience with ice cream trucks?). However, when the reach of racism robs me of fond memories from my childhood, it feels intensely personal again.
Whenever I hear the music now, the antique voice laughing about niggers and watermelon fills my head. I can live with this, but what's to be done on the summer day when my children's eyes light up at the far-off sound of the familiar melody, and they dash in a frenzy toward me for change? Do I empower them with the history of our country, or encourage the youthful exuberance induced by the ice cream truck? Is it my responsibility to foul the sweet taste of ice cream with their first taste of racism?
The answer is intellectually complex, but parental intuition provides clarity. When teeth fall out, I blame the dollar under their pillow on the tooth fairy. When presents appear overnight under the fir tree, I say Santa Claus is the culprit. And so when a song about niggers and watermelon fills the suburban air, I will smile and hand over money from my pocket. The sight of my children enjoying a Good Humor ice cream bar will fight back the racist song that lampooned black people who happened to be in good humor. The delivery of the cold hard truth can wait until another day.
That "something" has taken the form of a collaboration between Good Humor and Wu-Tang Clan's singer, musician and producer RZA to create a new jingle. The brand, owned by Unilever, made the announcement on Thursday that it's helping drivers learn about the racist roots of "Turkey in the Straw" and how to replace the music box in the truck that plays it.
Code Switch dove into the song's racist history in a blog post by Theodore R. Johnson III back in 2014. As he explained, "Turkey in the Straw" is a 19th century folk song that riffs on an Irish fiddle song, "The (Old) Rose Tree." Depending on the version you listen to, the lyrics change a little bit every time, but are generally nonsensical.
The "Zip C**n" version, as Johnson detailed in a follow-up piece, became a popular song in ice cream parlors in the 1890s. And as ice cream trucks became ubiquitous following World War II, the jingle followed along.
It is the theme adopted by the other 'racist' ice cream truck. 'Turkey In The Straw,' 'Do Your Ears Hang Low,' and the 1916 original version that is politically incorrect to mention here (but for the sake of education, I will.)
It could help shift stuff, because Hardy writes so many songs for others, and if this succeeds, it will create an avenue for more story songs to be considered. I rarely review individual songs. This one feels like an important one.
I can see why people would like this. I am not one of those people, but I can understand the appeal. The production/sound is not something I like, but I think the song has a good story. The hook at the end was good. The part about sending the guy to Hell. So it took four people to write that? Why?
Yet, if you asked any of us, we could describe the horror of our childhood in terms that this song touches on. Maybe the lyrics will bring recognition of abuse to others, and maybe give them the courage to escape. NOT by the method described in the song, but maybe because someone DOES recognize the abuse and steps in to help.
Thats what were coming to people singing fake songs. The only person that would go do something like that with a girl he knows nothing about is a trashy person that has nothing going on in his own life. To give everything up on that. Ghetto. Plus look at the guy singing the song. Ghetto. Not country. Cheap trash
You are not wrong. It is a boyfriend country song. It taps into that fantasy that some lady is enough for a guy to completely wreck his life over. Of course, many a man has ruined his life trying to play white knight for some damsel.
"I Drive Your Truck" is a song written by Jessi Alexander, Connie Harrington, and Jimmy Yeary and recorded by American country music artist Lee Brice. It was released in December 2012 as the third single from his album Hard 2 Love.
The song is about the narrator driving a truck owned by his brother, who died in action in the United States Army. Co-writer Connie Harrington was inspired to write it after hearing an interview on Here and Now with a father, Paul Monti, whose son, Medal of Honor recipient Jared, was killed in Afghanistan while trying to save a fellow soldier. In the interview, he states that he drives the truck to feel close to his son.[1][2][3]
The truck that appears in the music video is a late 1960s Ford F-Series (fifth generation). The actual truck driven by Jared Monti, and then his father, Paul, was a Dodge 4x4 Ram 1500 truck adorned with decals, including the 10th Mountain Division, the 82nd Airborne Division, an American flag and a "Go Army" decal.[4] On September 1, 2022, Jared's truck was driven by two of his Army comrades during the funeral procession for Paul Monti.[5]
The song gained sufficient airplay to debut on the Country Airplay for chart dated February 23, 2013, and eventually reaching No. 1 on this chart on April 20, 2013, making it his third consecutive No. 1.[8] It also debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 91 in February 2013 and peaked at No. 47 on April 13, 2013. It reached No. 6 on the Hot Country Songs and No. 11 on the Country Digital Songs. The song has sold 870,000 copies in the US as of April 2014.[9]
Yep, that tune is "Turkey in the Straw" and as an American classical instrumentalist, I've come across it many times. I had no idea that it started off as a coon song - nor did I even know what a coon song was until this post brought it to my attention. I will definitely be wary of any ragtime folk tune from now on and make special attempts to research and avoid playing any tunes with racist history. I'd love to see Lisa do a post on coon songs in general, and how often we come across them with our contemporary ears.
To me this tune brings to mind the lyrics "Do your ears hang low/Do they wobble to and fro..." I'd say that is far, far better known among American children (as well as ice-cream truck drivers!) than a obscure century-old racist recording. So to say that ice cream trucks play a racist song is a huge stretch. More accurately the same melody has been used over the generations set to different words. The fact that some lyric writers chose racist words does not make this is a racist melody.
I wonder if this began as a racist song or if this recording just set its lyrics to a familiar tune? I also know it as Turkey in the Straw. Here is what Wikipedia has on Turkey in the Straw: _in_the_Straw
I know this as the "bow-legged chicken" song ("I'm a bow-legged chicken, I'm a knock-kneed hen/Never been so happy since I don't know when/And I walk with a wiggle and a squiggle and a squawk/Doin' the Tennessee wig walk"... and yes, there was a dance).
That's just not really true. Like many folk songs, people have made up lots of different lyrics to fit the tune. Broadsheet balladeer style. The ice cream trucks are playing a tune that is much older than this racist set of lyrics.
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