Racist lyric in J Davis "Old Red River..."
Dan Cutrer
lyrics in the Jimmie Davis song "Where the Old Red River Flows."
I recall playing the Decca version of the song as a teenage disc
jockey in Louisiana in the mid-60's ... and didn't recall any
"racist" lyric in it.
The Hank Williams ... the Biography book I mentioned in a
separate posting has details of the lyric on page 12 ... The
original lyric "... you can hear the darkies crooning soft and
low" was changed to "bullfrogs" in the version released in
the mid 60's, after Davis was out of office (for the second
time), as Governor of Louisiana.
Incidentally, the book also mentions another Davis song
I doubt any of us had ever hard of ... "Tom Cat and Pussy
Blues", was released on the RCA Victor label around
1930... "but, by the time he (Davis) signed with Decca
in 1934 he was trying to clean up his act and his image."
"His biggest hit on Decca was "You Are My Sunshine",
which he claimed as his composition, although it was
apparently written by a woman in South Carolina and
sold to Davis by the Rice Brothers, whose recording
predated his."
The footnotes cite "liner notes to Jimmie Davis 'Rockin'
Blues' and 'Barnyard Stomp', Vollersode, Germany:
Bear Family Records, 1983 and 1988."
Stephan Gribok
>
>There was a question here a couple weeks ago about "racist"
>lyrics in the Jimmie Davis song "Where the Old Red River Flows."
>
>
>
>
Followup:
There are lots of apparently racist lyrics in oldtime songs, and it is
difficult for me to know how to handle them with an appropriate level
of political correctness vs. historical accuracy. For example, the
Yellow Rose of Texas ("the sweetest rose of color this darkie ever knew
..) and the Year of Jubilo ("the massa run, hey-hey, the darkies stay,
ho-ho ...). You see them in sailor songs too ("when I was young and in
my prime, I knocked them yellow girls two at a time").
It seems a shame not to play/sing these songs at all, and it seems
silly or even more politically incorrect to change the lyrics to put in
"bullfrogs" for "darkies" as in your example. (What would you suggest
to replace "yellow girls"?).
What do the black people think about this? (Flameless answers
appreciated).
Paul M. Gifford
>Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 16:15:34 EDT
>From: BILL ELLIS <WC...@psuvm.psu.edu>
>Subject: Re: Racist lyric in J Davis "Old Red River..."
>As for "racism," I wonder how much was intended as being derogatory and
>how much was simple appropriation of what was then accepted w/o question
>as the ethnic argot of the time? The Skillet Lickers' "Run Nigger Run"
>has nothing to do with the Klan; in fact, the singer identifies with the
>poor fellow trying to escape the "patteroler" (plantation patrollers).
>When interviewed, Gid Tanner could not explain the term "patteroler" and
>said it was "some bad man, I suppose." Mmmm ... slave-patrolers were
>"bad" and singers sided with those trying to get out of their reach....
>Racism? If so, an odd sort.
>OK, *now* it would be offensive to compose and sing a song with that
>title, just as I *hope* it would be offensive for a rap group to
>compose a new song with the refrain "Run honkey run" (or whatever the
>equivalent term is now). Maybe even it's tricky to perform such a
>song, even with a carefully gauged historicizing prolog or liner note.
>But I wonder if we're not simply letting our present reaction to words
>manipulate our knowledge of the past, in the right-headed but quixotic
>way in which action groups ban Twain's Huck Finn from school libraries
>because Huck calls his friend what he naturally would have called him
>them--Nigger Jim. (Jim actually runs a bigger risk when he calls Huck
>"trash" after a quarrel; Huck, to his credit, backs down and apologizes.)
>Mmmmmm. Non-flaming responses?
Well said. A lot of these songs with "nigger" in the title probably were
originally made up and sung by blacks, like "Run Nigger Run." I can think of
a Stripling Brothers reissue on County in which the title was changed from
"Big-Footed Nigger in the Sandy Lot" to "Big-Footed Man in the Sandy Lot."
This was a significant alteration, but perhaps the least risky for the record
producer to go.
As much as I dislike racist attitudes, you can't whitewash your heritage. But
they took "Old Black Joe" out of school books long ago, even though it was an
anti-slavery song.
Paul Gifford
John Mahony
more on a song from another time.
At an old time jam that I go to almost weekly I made the mistake of
singing "Policeman" with Tommy Jarrell's lyrics. I really caught hell. It
amuses me how adhering to tradition is negotiable. One woman even said
that she erased those verses from her tape of the tune. While "nigger" is
certainly heinous today, I wonder if it was just a description of a black
man in Tommy Jarrell's context.
It seems to me that society is ill-served by whitewashing old songs.
In "The Year of Jubilo" some people don't use the word "darky" and put in
something like "old folks". The song's about a slave uprising on a
plantation, not a geriatric ward!
I agree that many negative attitudes need to be changed, but it should be
through intelligent discourse, not through revisionist history.
-
JOHN MAHONY URH...@prodigy.com
"Nothin' really matters- and so what if it did?"
Jim Coladonato
Mark Clark
one even though the black protagonist is in a demeaning role he
gets even in the end by killing his master and apparently gets
away with it.
--
Mark Clark
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
70413...@compuserve.com
Peter Shenkin
>>I must say it bothers me to see lyrics changed to impose a contemporary
>>more on a song from another time.
Agreement here. Regarding the Subject: line, this topic
came up before, about a year ago, in rec.music.country.western.
Someone had mentioned the Dick Curless recording of this song, and
I made a comment that he had expurgated the lyrics. I had to educate
them honkies. I know the song, by the way, from the great Clyde Moody
recording on King. Clyde sings "darkies"; Curless sings "people".
Some more along these lines. I went to hear the New Lost City
Ramblers last Sat. night at Symphony Space. They played a song
that they called "Aristocracy". I practically jumped out of
my chair. Mike Seeger told John Cohen to leave out the C chord.
That would be OK with me, just as long as they put back the C word.
I understand that on some Rounder record, there's a song whose title
is given as "In the Woodpile".
>>It seems to me that society is ill-served by whitewashing old songs.
Or by blackwashing them. :-)
There's a famous story about Louis Armstrong, who was re-recording
his theme, "Sleepy Time Down South", for the N'th time late in his
career. When he came to the line "darkies singing soft and low",
his producer insisted that he change it to "banjos playing", but
Louis was equally insistent that they keep it. Of course, how
banjos can play soft and low was probably as problematical to Louis
is is to you and me, but anyway, they decided to call it a day. The
next day the producer wanted to try again. Louis asked him, "What
you want me to call them black bastards today, boss?" Now, there
was a wise man.
Now that the Holocaust has been over for 50 years, can't we please
start calling each other names again?
-P.
--
******** When somebody says, "It's a matter of principle,"... ********
*Peter S. Shenkin, Box 768 Havemeyer Hall, Chemistry, Columbia Univ.,*
*NY, NY 10027; she...@columbia.edu; (212)854-5143; FAX: 678-9039*
************ ...it's a sure sign he wants the whole pie. *************
Peter Shenkin
Steve Goldfield <s...@hera.EECS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>In article <46o7g8$c...@cmcl2.NYU.EDU>, Matthew Killough <killough> wrote:
>#>URH...@prodigy.com (John Mahony) wrote:
>#>>I must say it bothers me to see lyrics changed to impose a contemporary
>#>>more on a song from another time.
>#>>At an old time jam that I go to almost weekly I made the mistake of
>#>>singing "Policeman" with Tommy Jarrell's lyrics. I really caught hell. It
>
>Just want to observe that I've heard that Tommy himself was
>careful about what he sang and even changed tune names when he
>was in public. So it's certainly completely traditional to
>park some parts of tradition on side tracks or to spruce
>them up for contemporary listeners.
Another example: Jack Thorp, who was the first person to collect
cowboy songs, and who wrote quite a few of them himself (including
"Little Joe the Wrangler"), talks about his need to extensively
expurgate the songs he collected for publication. I expect they'd
sound rather mild to modern ears, however, and I wonder if his
unexpurgated notebooks still exist in some archive.
Steve Goldfield
#>URH...@prodigy.com (John Mahony) wrote:
#>>I must say it bothers me to see lyrics changed to impose a contemporary
#>>more on a song from another time.
#>>At an old time jam that I go to almost weekly I made the mistake of
#>>singing "Policeman" with Tommy Jarrell's lyrics. I really caught hell. It
Just want to observe that I've heard that Tommy himself was
careful about what he sang and even changed tune names when he
was in public. So it's certainly completely traditional to
park some parts of tradition on side tracks or to spruce
them up for contemporary listeners.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Steve Goldfield :-{ {-: s...@coe.berkeley.edu
University of California at Berkeley Richmond Field Station
BILL ELLIS
In article <46r4ab$r...@solaris.cc.vt.edu>, ble...@morse.cns.vt.edu (Bill
Blevins) says:
>
>As a performer I think it is totally appropriate to change the lyrics
>when deemed necessary, Oscar Wright changed shavin a dead nigger to
>_Protect the innocent_ on one of his records. I don't feel it
>serves any purpose to keep an out dated title to a tune.
Agreed heartily: I thought about this example after I wrote my last
posting. It's a dandy tune (and, if I recall right, the banjo is
tuned aDEAD also, adding another macabre element to the tune). There's
nothing in the tune, or in any narrative attached to it, that would force
someone to continue calling it "Shavin' a Dead Nigger." (I have Dwight
Diller's version titled simply "S.A.D." but it's really too bouncy for
that title.)
Everyone knows the significance of the title? Remember the old Dragnet
episodes that ended "The story you have just heard is true. The names
have been changed to..."
>Then there is the battle over the Virginia State song.
Which is featured in a video I use in my class to describe and critique the
really ugly black stereotypes. ("Ethnic Notions"--borrow and watch it if you
can, really interesting anthology of late 19th-C and early 20th-C music and
film). The irony is that the author of the song was James A. Bland, the
first African American to break the color line in Tin Pan Alley (he also
wrote "Golden Slippers"). Racism? The kind he took white folks' money
to the bank with.
Whitewashing musical history sometimes slaps a coat over some underrecognized
ethnic musical heroes.
BE
Dan Cutrer
>
>When we recorded one of Danny Poullard's dad's tunes with him some years
>ago, we asked him the name of the tune. I should add that Danny is Creole
>(French-speaking African-American from southwest Louisiana). Danny said
>that his dad called it "Danse de Neg'" but that he didn't want that title
>on the album. So we called it Danse de Poullard instead.
>Suzy Thompson
Serves to remind me of a bit of angst from WYNK, Baton Rouge,
in the mid-60's. We played a "Cajun Classic" once an hour, no one
on the staff spoke or understood a word of English. We tried to
find up-tempo, fast pieces. One of the most up-tempo, fastest,
that got played once a day, at least, was "Hey Negress." Yup,
we SHOULD have caught it. No one did, till the day the Cajun on
the phone says ..." ... Ya'll got any idea what that man's saying in
dat record you playing? I kinda thought you might say dat.
Lemmie tell you what dat man is saying ..."
So much for blind appreciation of other tongues!
SHeldman
I've always wondered about John Brown's Dream.
The same John Brown, of Harper's Ferry fame? Dreaming that the devil was
dead? Or just a coincidence (John Brown being, I recognize, a pretty
common name)?
Jon Weisberger
>And it takes, you'll excuse me, a lot of damn gall (in Arlo's
>wonderful phrase) to tell people who have been injured, individually
>and collectively, that they're "being too sensitive" about words that
>have been hate words for centuries.
>...
>Should we censor the archives, the libraries, the reissue albums, the
>books? I say, hell no; this *is* part of our history, and these *are*
>(some of them) good songs. But I myself have to choose what I will
>sing from a stage or put on a recording, and I can't ignore the
reality that certain thins will *hurt* human beings who already have
>been hurt plenty. And that, I choose not to do.
A thoughtful approach. I think this is a difficult issue, and nothing
irritates me more than to see people dismiss it as such with a lot of
noise about kowtowing to "political correctness." There *is* a
legitimate question about what to do here, and to suggest that there
isn't - that it's a cut-and-dried matter of either being a repressive
censor or striking a blow for freedom by using offensive language
intimately associated with centuries of violence and brutality -
indicates that the suggester does not believe in the power of words or
art, in which case the question naturally arises as to why they are
involved in the arts at all.
--
Jon Weisberger, Cincinnati jo...@ix.netcom.com
============================================================
"Any song I think that's worth singing is worth having
harmony." -- Charlie Louvin
============================================================
Lynn Chirps
he got it from an old Minstrel Show book. But perhaps Dan can give better
details than I.
Later,
Chirps Smith
Paul J. Stamler
: Just a question- did Woddy Guthrie ever use any lyrics with racial
: content?
Yes, but not on record. He has an account in "Bound for Glory" of singing
in a bar back in the 30s, when he was bumming his way west, and singing a
song called "Nigger Blues". He describes, quite movingly, how a black man
came up to him afterwards and, very gently, asked him please not to sing
it any more. The man said to Woody, (I'm not quoting exactly, since it's
been a good 15 years since I read the book) "I don't mind when another
Negro says that word, but it hurts my heart to hear a white man say it."
Peace.
Paul
Mike Murray
and reasonable. I'd like to add my two bits worth.
First, it's always an alternative to refrain from
doing a song. There is no shortage of tunes. A good song
may have to lie dormant for a while. For example, it's
been some time since I've done "Banks of the Ohio".
Second, it's one thing to appropriate a folk song
for one's own use. It's quite another to rewrite an
authored song to make it politically correct. Year of
The Jubilo was written by Henry Clay Work, an ardent
abolitionist. His intentions were good, but his language
might not be appropriate today. If you feel that singing
his lyrics might ruin an evening for some members of the
audience, I think you should refrain from doing the song
for that audience. I don't think it's honest to clean
up or rewrite the song and still call it the same song.
Changing the title of an instrumental seems OK to
me, but I'm not sure I could spell out why.
Bill Richardson
>
> Which is featured in a video I use in my class to describe and critique
> the really ugly black stereotypes. ("Ethnic Notions"--borrow and watch
> it if you can, really interesting anthology of late 19th-C and early
> 20th-C music and film).
Umm, a quick reading of this statement would lead one to think Carry Me
Back to Old Virginny is filled with "really ugly black stereotypes", which
just isn't the case. The song uses the word "darkie" in reference to the
narrator of the song, and "massa" in reference to the man he "labored so
hard for". Its paternalistic, not vicious. I've sung it lots of times,
changing "old darkie" to "old timer", and "massa and missus" to "momma and
daddie". You end up with a song without a hint of racist lyrics. Other
than in the memory of the people, I suppose.
These changes are so obvious and simple that it makes me wonder about all
the controversy. Every once in a while someone surfaces in the news with
a horrible rewrite of the song, or someone else wants to get rid of it
completely. Its a great melody, by the way. Nice 2-step beat.
ghost
>Just a question- did Woddy Guthrie ever use any lyrics with racial
>content?
>
I dunno about lyrics, but the PBS-radio-aired bio of his life (2- or 3-parter,
& very good) relates that he lost a radio DJ job in southern Cal over having
said on air "I'm headed down to Mexico to have a real good time" or
"real hot time" or something as innocuous, on the face of it, as that.
The Mexicans in the listening audience resented the image of Mexico as the
place you went to have "a real hot time", & judging by the double-speak used
at the time, I'd say they were right to resent it. (Other members of the
listening audience probably resented the idea that one would have a real hot
time *anywhere*, & the bio didn't say so but I'd bet that was a factor too.)
Craig Usher
(David Lynch) writes:
>
>It saddens me to read that performners are changing lyrics of songs
which
>document a historical era to accommodate the current climate and its
>over-preoccupation with "political correctness".....
I think it would be a easier to take all these defenses of racist
lyrics in old-time if the current old-time scene weren't so well, um,
white dominated. Rather than hearing yet another white guy defending
words that are (or were) insults of black people -- I think it would be
a lot more enlightening to listen to how black folks feel about it. Of
course some white guy with a banjo ain't gonna too bothered rolling
racist words off their tongue because the insult isn't directed at him.
Also, am sick of people throwing words like "political correctness"
into the stew whenever race or gender get brought up -- it's a semantic
red flag that really doesn't have anything to do with the real issues.
Having said this all I actually support the importance of understanding
and perpetuating the original intent of any art be it music, painting,
film, etc. I believe in the value of maintaining an authentic
presentation, while acknowledging the power relations behind it all.
Old-time music has racist roots which I don't think should be ignored
for fear of offending folks.
But (too continue the twists of this message) I also agree with the
posting a while ago that pointed out how the folk process means music
and words are always changing -- that is an old-time tradition as well
-- I see nothing wrong with people changing words to fit their liking
-- so I think I'm going to start changing all the racist lyrics I see
to lines about "stupid smelly inbred pale-skinned honky guys with no
teeth plukking out-of-tune banjos" and we'll see how y'all like that.
In good humor,
Craig
Bill Richardson
more popular threads, wouldn't you say?
It got me to thinking how close we could be to it being acceptable to use
those lyrics, if you think about it. Who are we offending if we used those
lyrcs? White people, for the most part. I don't know about the rest of
you, but at least 95% of my audience is always white. So what's stopping
someone from using those lyrcis? The sensitivities of whites, not blacks.
That's a mighty thin line, if you think about it.
For the majority of blacks who deal with racisim in some form every day,
the drop of a word or two would have to be trivial, but still a very real
reminder of that racism.
The old songs and tune names remind you that there were times when it was
quite acceptable and even proper to include race in the words of popular
songs and nearly all kinds of speech. Yet they are the art of the
period. Art with a tinge of racist content.
Bill Richardson
blacksburg virginia
Paul J. Stamler
: The old songs and tune names remind you that there were times when it was
: quite acceptable and even proper to include race in the words of popular
: songs and nearly all kinds of speech. Yet they are the art of the
: period. Art with a tinge of racist content.
More a flood than a tinge. Check out an auction catalog of 78s some time
(Nauck's or someone like that) and look at the list of titles. The number
of titles alone with racist content is remarkable. Our popular
entertainment industry used racial stereotypes as one of its most basic
staples. And not only African-Americans: also Irish, Jews, Italians,
Mexicans (remember "My name Jose Jimenez"?), Chinese, and members of many
other minority groups. And these were, mostly, grossly insulting caricatures
rather than affectionate joshing (with some exceptions, like the "Cohen
on the Telephone" recordings). Some of the recordings in my collection
kind of make you embarrassed to be in the same species with the
perpetrators. Not to mention the same race...
Peace.
Paul
Alex Rudnicky
> I have a friend who used to raise Newfoundland dogs and every time he
> heard the "n---" word he changed it to "Newfie"....
Of course, in Canada Newfoundlanders are sometimes the butt of "Newfie" jokes.
(Newfoundland is a fairly poor province and city dwellers elsewhere in the
country occasionally like to make fun of their presumed backwardness.)
So, basically, the problem is the attitude behind such a word, not the word
itself.
Peter Shenkin
Craig Usher <s...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>In <dsl-281095...@ip005.lax.primenet.com> d...@primenet.com
>(David Lynch) writes:
>>
>>It saddens me to read that performners are changing lyrics of songs
>which
>>document a historical era to accommodate the current climate and its
>>over-preoccupation with "political correctness".....
>
>I think it would be a easier to take all these defenses of racist
>lyrics in old-time if the current old-time scene weren't so well, um,
Something that's not been pointed out is that not every reference to
race or ethnicity is racist. The "ethnic cleansing" of folk material
doesn't discriminate, however.
It's hard (for me) to think of the title "Colored Aristocracy" as
racist. If this title really is a cleansed version of "Uppity
Nigger" then I'm amused; certainly the latter strikes me as racist,
but in the context of its own times, even here I'm not sure.
I'd like to hear more about this transmogrification: who made it
and when, and do we really know that this is the way it happened.
On an album cover, the title "Nigger in the Woodpile" could be printed
"Nigger (sic) in the Woodpile".
I don't blame people for not singing "Some folks say a nigger
won't steal, but I caught one in my cornfield" anymore. But I
wouldn't hesitate to play this on a radio show, with appropriate
un-endorsements.
Regarding the lyrics that started this thread, "you can hear the
darkies singing soft and low", I have have to confess that I
have trouble hearing this as racist. I don't think I could sing
these words in public and feel comfortable, though, to be equally
honest. In any case, "African-Americans" doesn't scan. :-)
Along the same lines, there's Jimmie Rodgers' "I long to hear
the darkies sing those old melodies." I find this incredibly
sweet. The substitutes I've heard pale by comparison.
I question whether the people singing these lyrics on the original
recordings were racist. Some were, I'm sure, but I don't think
you had to be racist to sing these lyrics. Most seem strangely
naive, rather than racist, to me today. The fact that we're so
sensitive about -- even afraid of -- possibly offending anybody
today seems to me to say more about our extreme sensitivity toward
the issue of racism than it does about racism itself.
Instead of asking, "Is this ugly?", we're indiscriminately asking,
"Is there someone out there who might possibly get offended?". The
climate out there makes it hard to do otherwise, but I think this
is to be lamented. I don't think that fear of possibly offending
someone has ever been conducive to great or even good art.
I think one reason that many of Spike Lee's movies are so
successful (as movies as well as financially) is that he's not
afraid to offend. And by the way, he offends Italians and Jews
as much as he does Blacks, so the argument that "It's OK to offend
your own" doesn't suffice. I suspect that nearly everyone who is
arguing that these "racist" lyrics deserve to be expurgated is
*against* the suppression of gangsta rap and *against* the music
rating system proposed some years back by Tipper Gore and opposed
by Frank Zappa, among others. Or at least I am.
Yet somehow when it comes to the music we love, we take the
pusillanimous position that if someone could possibly be offended,
the lyrics should be suppressed -- even when we ourselves don't
hold the views imputed to the lyrics by those who are (or, in
some cases, I'm convinced, pretend to be) offended.
I'm really as subject to this as anyone else, despite my opposition,
but I can't quite figure out why.
Peter Shenkin
ghost <j...@endor.harvard.edu> wrote:
>... (Other members of the
>listening audience probably resented the idea that one would have a real hot
>time *anywhere*....
"Puritanism: Fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun."
- H. L. Mencken
BILL ELLIS
>
>I play an old-time banjo song called "Run, Nigger, Run," sometimes...
>What do I do when somebody asks me the title of the song?
Give it a title that you think fits the tune. I've heard the same tune played
under the name "Rose of the Morning." The Balfa Brothers played it under a
Cajun title that translates something like "I saw the wolf, the fox, and the
weasel dancing together."
I imagine some enterprising musicians think it too good a tune to
saddle with politics. Likewise lots of tunes get renamed after the person
whom the musician heard them from.
The name of a tune, after all, is just a handle to let the rest of the band
know what's going to be played. Who cares if it's "Mississippi Sawyer" or
"The Downfall of Paris," or "Soldier's Joy" or "Love Somebody," to name some
obvious examples.
And if someone in the audience knows racially tinged lyrics, well, what of it?
I know dirty words to "Granny Will Your Dog Bite." Does that mean I'm going
to call in the vice squad if you play it?
BE
PaulClarke
Murray and Paul Stamler in particular. Thanks to both of them for
articulating many of my thoughts so clearly. I have just a couple of
things to add.
In the late 60's or early 70's I watched a public TV documentary of
Appalachian folk music that included a recording (no pictures) of what
sounded like a elderly (I hope!) man singing the words:
"When you hear my pistol firin',
'nother nigger dead,
'nother nigger dead..."
The words, and the casual way they were sung, made the hair on the back of
my neck stand up. There was no editorial comment from the filmmaker. The
singer, apparently aware that people outside his neighborhood might hear,
added the comment,
"When I say 'nigger' I don't mean any disrespect by it. It's just
easier to say than negro."
Apparently it didn't occur to him that the idea of having a weapon just
for the purpose of killing black people was in itself disrespectful,
regardless of the words used to express the idea. There's a limit to what
can be corrected by changing words.
The discussion is timely for people in the southern SF Bay area, where the
San Jose school board has just voted to remove Huckleberry Finn from the
required reading list for high school students, because of the prevalence
of "the N word," while leaving it on the optional reading list. I think
the board made the right decision, because as Mark Twain himself wrote
(I'm paraphrasing):
"It always distresses me when parents complain to me about Huck Finn,
because I intended it to be read by adults, not by children..."
This is followed by words to the effect that a mind once corrupted by
exposure to impure thoughts can never again be made pure. Then he adds:
"That is why I regard with bitterness those adults who permitted, in
fact required me, at a very young age, to read an unexpurgated and
unabridged Bible."
Twain used irony to make the point that Huck Finn, the Bible, and by
extension folk music, can be used either to teach rascism and other nasty
things, or to teach ABOUT them. The difference is the context in which
the material is presented. A context in which entertainment is expected
is a risky one for use of rascist language, not only because of the pain
you may cause, but because you may just validate people's rascist feelings
instead of challenging them.
Peace,
Paul
Ted2204
who said
>Many years ago I heard a version (Sorry! Can't remember the performer.)
in
>which the words were changed to "Run, Boy, Run." I thought that this was
MUCH
>more offensive than the original.
Exactly. So what do I do when asked the name of "Run, Nigger, Run?"
And to Paul Stamler who had the wisdom to both quote Mark Twain and to
offer practical advice, to wit:
>"Always tell the truth. This will please some, and astonish the rest."
I'd tell my friends,with >appropriate apologies, the real name of the une,
acknowledging the reality of the past while making >clear your loathing
for the attitude expressed.
Thanks to you both.
Ted Lissauer
Fisherville, Kentucky
ted...@aol.com
Peter Feldmann
>Just a question- did Woddy Guthrie ever use any lyrics with racial
>content?
Interesting question.
I believe Woody was involved in some "patriotic" songs during WWII. Carson
Robison recorded one called: "We're going to have to slap that dirty little
Jap".
----------------------------------------------------------
Peter Feldmann * IC Consultants
P.O. Box 902 * Santa Barbara CA 93102
----------------------------------------------------------
David Lynch
Usher ) wrote:
> I think it would be a easier to take all these defenses of racist
> lyrics in old-time if the current old-time scene weren't so well, um,
> white dominated. Rather than hearing yet another white guy defending
> words that are (or were) insults of black people -- I think it would be
> a lot more enlightening to listen to how black folks feel about it. Of
> course some white guy with a banjo ain't gonna too bothered rolling
> racist words off their tongue because the insult isn't directed at him.
>
> Also, am sick of people throwing words like "political correctness"
> into the stew whenever race or gender get brought up -- it's a semantic
> red flag that really doesn't have anything to do with the real issues.
How does the saying go?: "Those who do not learn from history are doomed
to repeat it". How can we learn from history if the historical information
is innacurate?
And BTW, when I use the phrase political correctness I define it as an
effort to conform and please everyone, in which many things of distinct
character are becoming altered merely for the sake of homogenization.
I don't feel that I am insensitive to the hurtful nature of some of the
racist words contained in Old-Time lyrics. I am however concerned that the
historical context that created them might become irreparably distorted.
Let's face it, the South of a century ago was what it was, among other
things, fairly racist. If we try to cover up that fact, what's next?
Pretty soon, the lyrics of Sally Anne will be changed because someone
takes offense to the violent description of boys pelting an outsider with
rocks because he's come to court one of their local girls. The schisms in
the early South included race and locale, and I don't want to sweep these
details under the rug because of their negative nature.
The sociological implications of many Old-Time songs fascinates me. But
saying that I want to preserve this historical information intact does not
mean that I wish to perpetuate racist sentiments. I don't think it is
right to dissect a past culture piecemeal and throw out essential
components just because they are controversial or immoral. I want to know
about all the aspects of that era so I can better understand the culture.
I think it's important for anyone interested enough in researching this
music that they have access to accurate material. If this music is
drastically altered today, historians a hundred years from now might not
be able to deduce that the South was as racist as it was. In the interest
of history, I think they should know the truth.
I would like to think that most Old-Time musicians of today have a much
more highly evolved consciousness than our predecessors. I agree that the
content of these songs should not be used in a hurtful manner, and that
allowances should be made performing these tunes and songs. But I also
think that the original information should be preserved accurately
somewhere.
--Namaste',
--David Lynch
--web: http://www.primenet.com/~dsl/
Check out the Old-Time Music Home Page:
http://www.primenet.com/~dsl/oldtime.html
David Lynch
> I think it would be a easier to take all these defenses of racist
> lyrics in old-time if the current old-time scene weren't so well, um,
> white dominated. Rather than hearing yet another white guy defending
> words that are (or were) insults of black people -- I think it would be
> a lot more enlightening to listen to how black folks feel about it. Of
> course some white guy with a banjo ain't gonna too bothered rolling
> racist words off their tongue because the insult isn't directed at him.
I dunno, I think as a white man it would be more convenient to sweep the
racism under the rug rather than admit that some of my ancestors were
prejudiced jerks. I think racism demeans both the victim and the
perpetrator, so in fact, it does bother me that such harmful sentiments
exist in any form.
In the interest of history, I don't believe it is right to take a culture
and edit out portions of it where I see fit. I think it is important to
view that culture as the sum of its positive and negative qualities. Each
human being is a combination of good and bad traits. The South of a
century ago was exactly that. IMHO, altering that history would take the
humanity out of it.
When I research that culture in that period of time, I don't want the
edited version, even though it means facing the fact that some of my
ancestors were involved in some practices I'm not proud of.
BILL ELLIS
(Peter Shenkin) says:
>
>On an album cover, the title "Nigger in the Woodpile" could be printed
>"Nigger (sic) in the Woodpile".
Or altered (as the Skillet Lickers did in their re-recording of the tune
for Bluebird) to "Raccoon up a Gum Tree" (I think--but Gid sings the old
lyrics).
>I don't blame people for not singing "Some folks say a nigger
>won't steal, but I caught one in my cornfield" anymore.
Hmmm. I always heard this "Some folks say a *preacher* won't steal....
>Regarding the lyrics that started this thread, "you can hear the
>darkies singing soft and low", I have have to confess that I
>have trouble hearing this as racist. I don't think I could sing
>these words in public and feel comfortable, though, to be equally
>honest. In any case, "African-Americans" doesn't scan. :-)
There's an underlying sociolinguistic problem here (to get all hot and
academic). "Nigger" was (may still be) what one person of African
descent called another of similar ethnic origin. Similarly, I understand
"Polack" is the normal Polish word used by one Pole to refer to another.
The problem comes when a non-black or a non-Pole uses the word. It's
exactly parallel to the use of "tu" or "du" in European languages that
still preserve a difference between second-person singular and plural.
English "thou" for 2nd-person singular is dead in spoken language, and
we have to use "you" for both; hence regional coinages to distinguish the
two meanings: y'all, youse, you-uns.
In other languages "tu" is entirely appropriate if used to refer to
close friends, family, lovers, God. It is considered an insult if used
in other social contexts, especially by a person who belongs (or purports
to belong) to a superior social class. Hence "nigger" used by a white
to a black inevitably implies a claim of social privilege. But "nigger"
used by a black to another black might imply the opposite: a claim of
social solidarity.
The problem comes when culture can't agree what the polite "voi/Sie"
equivalent is. I saw a turn-of-the-century "coon song" once that had been
reprinted in the 1930s and bore a rubber-stamped instruction: "Performers may
choose to substitute "darky" for the word "nigger" when singing this song."
When I went through school in the 1960s, "negro" or "colored person" were both
considered polite terms. In the 1970s, "black" was preferred, and
then in the 1980s Jesse Jackson advocated "African-American" to be
more parallel to Polish-American etc.
(In a historical footnote, Woodrow Wilson (no less) once claimed that
the hyphen in "Polish-American" was akin to "a dagger poised over the
vitals of the Republic" by the disloyal person who used such a term:
back then you were Amerikan or you were jail bait no kiddin buster.)
Now I gather that Jackson has backed off African-American and has
reverted to "black" as the normal term for non-ethnics to use. Could
we try to hear the "blackies" singing soft and low? We *mean* well....
When discussing songs from earlier in the century, I think we need to be
aware of context as a determining factor in the *original* meaning of
such songs, so that we don't unnecessarily brand people like Jimmie
Rodgers and Gid Tanner as racists. Perhaps they were incorrect in their
beliefs about blacks--but, hey, even Abraham Lincoln freely conceded that
blacks were intellectually inferior to whites. He just didn't think that
they should be treated as farm equipment in the eyes of the Constitution.
Lincoln *meant* well. He was paternalistic, even incorrect--but a racist?
I think not.
BE
Nancy Mamlin
> We're confused about which weekend in June the Mt. Airy festival will be
> next year. Looks like June 1st is a Saturday, and I thought the festival,
> which runs Friday thru Sat. was the first FULL weekend of the month.
> Anybody have the dates?
>
> Paul Mitchell
It is the first FULL weekend in June- in 1996, that will be June 7 & 8.
For sure.
Nancy
***************************
Nancy Mamlin, Ph. D.
College of Education
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
704-262-6059 (office)
maml...@conrad.appstate.edu (email)
Bill Blevins
in June. Quote me if I am wrong.
bb
Paul M. Gifford
>From: psta...@crl.com (Paul J. Stamler)
>Subject: Re: Racist lyric in J Davis "Old Red River..."
>Date: 30 Oct 1995 11:41:24 -0800
Our popular
>entertainment industry used racial stereotypes as one of its most basic
>staples. And not only African-Americans: also Irish, Jews, Italians,
>Mexicans (remember "My name Jose Jimenez"?), Chinese, and members of many
>other minority groups. And these were, mostly, grossly insulting caricatures
>rather than affectionate joshing (with some exceptions, like the "Cohen
>on the Telephone" recordings). Some of the recordings in my collection
>kind of make you embarrassed to be in the same species with the
>perpetrators. Not to mention the same race...
In a very similar vein, they also used caricatures of other groups, not
necessarily minority: Uncle Josh, the North Carolina-born Yankee; Charles
Ross Taggart, the Vermont Yankee, whose "Old Country Fiddler" character looks
down on city ways.
This was not unique to American culture. For example, I have a Romanian
comedy monologue 78 where the character is an illiterate Gypsy, who speaks
with a Gypsy accent, and tries to enlist in the army. Obviously it is
insulting to Gypsies.
Paul Gifford
Bill Richardson
don't know yet.
Matthew Killough
[cut]
>And BTW, when I use the phrase political correctness I define it as an
>effort to conform and please everyone, in which many things of distinct
>character are becoming altered merely for the sake of homogenization.
This is a strange usage for the phrase since it seems to have no relation
to either politics or correctness. It would perhaps be more accurate to
use it to refer to the arrogance that leads many people to believe that
their own political views are the only acceptable ones and that those
who disagree with them are necessarily wrong or even evil. I personally
have noticed that people who like to dismiss other points of view as
'mere political correctness' are usually displaying this arrogance
themselves.
>I don't feel that I am insensitive to the hurtful nature of some of the
>racist words contained in Old-Time lyrics. I am however concerned that the
>historical context that created them might become irreparably distorted.
[cut]
>The sociological implications of many Old-Time songs fascinates me. But
>saying that I want to preserve this historical information intact does not
>mean that I wish to perpetuate racist sentiments. I don't think it is
>right to dissect a past culture piecemeal and throw out essential
>components just because they are controversial or immoral. I want to know
>about all the aspects of that era so I can better understand the culture.
>I think it's important for anyone interested enough in researching this
>music that they have access to accurate material. If this music is
>drastically altered today, historians a hundred years from now might not
>be able to deduce that the South was as racist as it was. In the interest
>of history, I think they should know the truth.
[cut]
You appear to be making two contradictory assumptions here.
On one hand you are assuming that song lyrics are of historical interest
precisely because they reflect the attitudes of the performers and the
audience. Yet you also seem to feel that this phenomenon does not apply
to you: that you are not racist even though you like to sing racist songs.
It seems to me that historians a hundred years from now will have no choice
but to look back at your music and deduce that the late 20th century was a
time of terrible racism and that you in particular advocated racism. I'm
not qualified to judge whether or not this is an accurate assessment of your
beliefs, but whether you 'wish to perpetuate racist sentiments' or not
you do have the *appearance* of doing so.
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm *not* advocating destruction of historical
evidence. I share your interest in the past and the relationship between
sociology and music. In fact, if you ever decide to write a book about
how the attitudes of our racist past are reflected in old-time song lyrics
I will be the first in line to buy a copy. But if you choose to sing these
lyrics yourself, I hope you will forgive me if I see that choice as revealing
your insensitivity to the hurtful nature of the words.
Before people start screaming 'censorship' I want to point out here that I
fully support every person's legal right to sing any lyrics he wants. But
legally right does not necessarily equate to morally right, and I hope that
you think very carefully about the effects of your words before you decide
to exercise your right to free speach.
-Matt Killough
(climbing down off his soapbox and looking around for his banjo)
Nancy Mamlin
> Somebody should call and find out- I need to know too. My guess is they
> don't know yet.
Why should they all of a sudden not know? When this has happened in the
past- it has always been the first FULL weekend. That means the first
Friday in June, in this case June 7-8.
Also, I just got a notice about the OTR conference, to be held prior to
Mt. Airy from June 4-6.
Nancy
Molly E. Hardin
you folks out there. In the song "Take Me Back to Georgia" (George
Jones), there is a line that goes something like
"Little bee sucks the flower,
Big bee gets the honey.
Dark man picks the cotton,
White man gets the money."
Would this be considered a racist lyric, or was it a reflection on the
way things were due to racism?
BILL ELLIS
(David Lynch) says (responding to Matthew Killough):
>
>> You seem to feel that this phenomenon does not apply
>> to you: that you are not racist even though you like to sing racist songs.
>
>lyrics, and I don't know where you got the idea that I like to do so.
Yipes! Watch that second person plural, which could mean "you, David
Lynch," or "all you revivalists who struggle with performing ethnically
charged material," or even "a hypothetical person, no one in particular,
but, y'know, one, a certain, a typical revivalist with this kind of
compartmentalized attitudes." Mmmmmm. Isn't this precisely the issue
with some of this material? An insult may be felt but not intended.
Thus lyrics--not all, but some--may well have expressed attitudes
for their time that would not have been recognized as racist. Now the
words haven't changed, but the whole sociolinguistic milieu has, so that
lyrics that were originally intended as unobjectionable, even sympathetic
to blacks, now take on an objectionable meaning in the listener's mind,
regardless of the performer's intentions.
>I think that socially, some of the sentiments within these old songs
>should never be expressed again. But I also don't think that the fact that
>these sentiments were more prevalent in past times should be swept under
>the rug.
True, and true. AND we should be sensitive to the fact that some words
that are offensive now may once have signalled tolerance and solidarity
with blacks. Let's look at the whole lyric and the whole performer.
Fiddlin' John Carson expressed horrifying anti-semitic feelings in his
(thankfully unrecorded) ballad celebrating Leo Frank's death at the hands
of a lynch mob. Uncle Dave Macon refused to stay at a hotels if
they wouldn't check in Deford Bailey. Macon did "racist" songs (including
the dreaded "Run Nigger Run"). So we look at Macon's lyrics just as
"sentiments more prevalent in past times"? The little closer look, as Cap'n
Ahab said, the little closer look....
BE
Matthew Killough
>First of all, I am not in the practice of singing tunes with racist
>lyrics, and I don't know where you got the idea that I like to do so.
>
>have been posing: How do we refrain from perpetuating the hurtful nature
>of racism while at the same time accurately preserving a past culture? I
>think it's an important conflict to consider, one I don't have a
>definitive answer for, but I am enjoying the many contributions to the
>discussion.
>
>And finally, I am not assuming as you say that "song lyrics are of
>historical interest
>precisely because they reflect the attitudes of the performers and the
>don't think should be detached from the overall historical significance of
>the song itself. Every song/tune can be experienced on different levels:
>first, for pure musical value. Beyond that, each song/tune has its own
>particular source and story behind it. I believe for those interested in
>researching the music at its historical level, they should have access to
>the unadulterated facts.
>
>I think that socially, some of the sentiments within these old songs
>should never be expressed again. But I also don't think that the fact that
>these sentiments were more prevalent in past times should be swept under
>the rug.
I actually agree with almost all of this. I seem to have misunderstood and
misrepresented your position. Please accept my apologies. Especially for
my assumption that you sing racist lyrics. I'm not quite sure what gave
me that impression either.
I've really got to learn not to post to newsgroups before that first cup of
morning coffee kicks in and mellows me out a little.
Peace.
Matt
Steve Goldfield
Molly E. Hardin <mha...@willamette.edu> wrote:
#> I think this is an interesting discussion and I have a question for
#>you folks out there. In the song "Take Me Back to Georgia" (George
#>Jones), there is a line that goes something like
#> "Little bee sucks the flower,
#> Big bee gets the honey.
#> Dark man picks the cotton,
#> White man gets the money."
#> Would this be considered a racist lyric, or was it a reflection on the
#>way things were due to racism?
That one goes back at least to Bob Wills, and I'd regard it simply
as a statement of fact about an unjust society. Sometimes the
lyric goes, "poor man picks the cotton, rich man gets the money."
So, IMHO, it's not a racist lyric but rather a subtle indictment
of racism. As was pointed out about Uncle Dave Macon, though there
is certainly lots of racism in the tradition, there were also a
lot of principled performers who stood up to it. And, of course,
the tradition was also carried by large numbers of Black string
bands, too. I wonder what words they sang to these tunes if they
sang or played them at all. Wouldn't surprise me to find that
the lyrics above were first written by a black man or woman.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Steve Goldfield :-{ {-: s...@coe.berkeley.edu
University of California at Berkeley Richmond Field Station
BILL ELLIS
ga...@sunchem.chem.uga.edu (John Garst) says:
>
>> Fiddlin' John Carson expressed horrifying anti-semitic feelings in his
>> (thankfully unrecorded) ballad celebrating Leo Frank's death at the hands
>> of a lynch mob.
>
>were recording of "Little Mary Phagan." Certainly, it is often collected.
No, I mean "There's a Dear Old Oak in Georgia," which is reprinted from
a broadside "By old Fiddling John Carson" by Gene Wiggins in his
FIDDLIN' GEORGIA CRAZY (pp. 42-43). Sample verse:
Little Mary is in heaven, where the streets are paved with Gold,
While Frank is in the pits of H--- kicking with the coals,
Two years we have waited and tales [of his alleged innocence] we have
listened to,
But the boys of old Georgia had to get that brutal Jew.
The telling detail is that "hell" had to be expurgated for the broadside.
But antisemitism and approval of lynching was P.C. then. Mmmmmm.
BE
John Garst
<WC...@psuvm.psu.edu> wrote:
...
> Fiddlin' John Carson expressed horrifying anti-semitic feelings in his
> (thankfully unrecorded) ballad celebrating Leo Frank's death at the hands
> of a lynch mob.
Do you refer to "Little Mary Phagan" or some other song? I thought there
were recording of "Little Mary Phagan." Certainly, it is often collected.
*********************************************************************
John Garst ga...@sunchem.chem.uga.edu
*********************************************************************
Laws of Tradition: (1) Nothing is ever lost.
(2) Nothing ever stays the same.
John Lupton
>From: "Molly E. Hardin" <mha...@willamette.edu>
>Subject: Racist lyrics
>Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 14:31:40 -0800
> I think this is an interesting discussion and I have a question for
>you folks out there. In the song "Take Me Back to Georgia" (George
>Jones), there is a line that goes something like
> "Little bee sucks the flower,
> Big bee gets the honey.
> Dark man picks the cotton,
> White man gets the money."
> Would this be considered a racist lyric, or was it a reflection on the
>way things were due to racism?
This lyric goes back long before George Jones, it's straight out of Bob Wills'
"Take Me Back To Tulsa", except as I recall, Wills' original line (sung by
Tommy Duncan) was "Darky chops the cotton", or something close to that. I'm
not sure that Wills actually wrote the song, but it's one of his best-known
recordings.
I'd be very leery of stepping into a debate over the intent in a piece of
songwriting that's 50 years old or more. Times and attitudes change, and it's
a little unfair to use today's sensibilities to brand someone a racist on
the basis of something written in a different era, especially when they're not
around to defend themselves anymore. Besides, in this particular instance, the
lyric can be construed to be anti-racist, pointing out that the people doing
the work aren't getting the benefits.
********************************************************************************
John Lupton, SAS Comm & Network Svcs, University of Pennsylvania
"Rural Free Delivery", WVUD-FM 91.3, Newark, Delaware
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jlupton/rfd.html
Brandywine Friends of Old Time Music
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jlupton/bfotm.html
********************************************************************************
The University of Pennsylvania: a bar with a $25,000 cover charge...
R Wilkie
the line, Black man make the 'baccer crop, the white man get the money,
is, along with several more from the same song, anti-racism and a
critique of Jim Crow probably dating from the Reconstruction Era.
Another verse goes, "Baccer selling high, baccer sellin' hight, Baccer
sellin' for fifteen cents, Ain't no one to buy." There are quite a number
of songs in the tradition that are critical of the conditions of
exploitation in the south and elsewhere. "Down on Penny's Farm" is one of
many. I cite both in my upcoming study on the civic rhetoric of
traditional folk song. Best regards, Prof. R. Wilkie.
Lee & Margaret
(John Lupton) wrote:
> it's
> a little unfair to use today's sensibilities to brand someone a racist on
> the basis of something written in a different era, especially when
they're not
> around to defend themselves anymore.
I can't believe I'm blanking on his name now (some history graduate I am)
but let's remember that former Alabama governor who recently apologized
for opposing the civil rights in the 60s and attended the civil rights
rally last year. If that SOB can change his ways, anybody can.
> Besides, in this particular instance, the
> lyric can be construed to be anti-racist, pointing out that the people doing
> the work aren't getting the benefits.
>
You're probably right. I'm continually amazed at people who want "The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" banned from school libraries for use of
the word "nigger," when anyone who's even moderately bright can see that
it was one of the most eloquent anti-racisms statement of the 19th
century.
Lee Nichols
Austin, TX
Robin E. Baylor
: You're probably right. I'm continually amazed at people who want "The
: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" banned from school libraries for use of
: the word "nigger," when anyone who's even moderately bright can see that
: it was one of the most eloquent anti-racisms statement of the 19th
: century.
I agree completely, but occasionally wonder about why I haven't heard
of anyone trying to ban Huck Finn because Huck chooses to go against
everything he learned in church and from all the respectable folk in
town by helping Jim. This book is VERY subversive to authority.
(YAY SUBVERSION!)
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