When will we stop digging through the entire history of humanity to find racist undertones in entertainment? My gosh, nobody associates these songs with anything but ice cream these days. Can we...
When will we stop digging through the entire history of humanity to find racist undertones in entertainment? My gosh, nobody associates these songs with anything but ice cream these days. Can we not just let these types of things be forgotten? These types of stories strike me as rage bait. Yes, I know “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it” etc. but doesn’t it get tiresome to hear about stuff like this all the time (let me ruin that thing you love or have nostalgia for)?
I both agree and disagree with your statement. The part about frequently seeing "ruin this" type posts on the internet is annoying. It's why I typically steer away from communities for video games...
Exemplary
I both agree and disagree with your statement.
The part about frequently seeing "ruin this" type posts on the internet is annoying. It's why I typically steer away from communities for video games I like. It's much easier to post negativity, regardless of it's general negativity, rage bait, slander, witch hunts, etc. And people "love to hate," if you will. I think in a lot of contexts, this is a valid complaint. We should focus more on the positives in life, praise the things that bring us joy, and be supportive of people who need it.
However, I do believe that it is important to acknowledge history, and accepting ignorance by "forgetting" is ultimately a bad thing, especially in the context of racism and other issues where groups of people have been mistreated. This doesn't mean you have to feel guilt if you buy ice cream from an ice cream truck. The reality is the person running the truck likely has no idea of the song's past. And it doesn't become your job to inform them, either.
But bits of information like this can help produce change if shared with others, most notably with older teenagers who are still shaping into adults. I find it eye opening that so much media has these types of ties to horrible historical events, and it helps me develop an understanding for how deeply rooted racism is, and why it is necessary to fight against it, even as someone who is not part of this type of minority group.
I agree with pretty much everything you said. The one caveat I'd add is that there's a fine line between informing people while their worldview is still under construction and informing them while...
I agree with pretty much everything you said. The one caveat I'd add is that there's a fine line between informing people while their worldview is still under construction and informing them while they're still too immature to care. Especially for teens, if you tell them that some melody used to be associated with super-racist lyrics, some non-trivial portion of them (almost exclusively male) will start looking for the most fitting metrical places to slot in the n-word.
Also, my hunch on the “rather remain ignorant” crowd is that it's driven by an annoyance at those who view it as their duty to inform others. As you say, it doesn't become your job to tell them. There'd be less resistance to learning if it were just another historical curiosity instead of followed with “…and we should do something about it.”
From personal experience, young white women can be just as eager to get the opportunity to say the n-word. If you think it's almost exclusively boys doing this, you just haven't interacted with...
some non-trivial portion of them (almost exclusively male)
From personal experience, young white women can be just as eager to get the opportunity to say the n-word. If you think it's almost exclusively boys doing this, you just haven't interacted with enough conservative girls.
True, my female classmates weren’t conservative (they would later become Hillary Clinton megafans). I assumed it was boy-coded behavior because the boys doing that largely lacked fixed political...
True, my female classmates weren’t conservative (they would later become Hillary Clinton megafans). I assumed it was boy-coded behavior because the boys doing that largely lacked fixed political positions and the girls didn’t join in.
Two points I disagree with here…. And then I go completely off the rails on one of my procrastinating anti-racist soapboxes here, so read if it’s entertaining I guess? One is that you can’t expect...
Two points I disagree with here…. And then I go completely off the rails on one of my procrastinating anti-racist soapboxes here, so read if it’s entertaining I guess?
One is that you can’t expect to control someone about caring or not caring when you are teaching/informing. There are too many unknown variables. Inform, and the rest is up to the other party. Views change (hopefully for the better). Views built on education are usually better.
As for the whole “we should do something about that” resistance/resentment… IMO that’s a red herring used to bash the “woke left”. Teaching people all the ways racism is woven through our history and culture IS the “something”. (Ignoring some of the dumber lefty ideas around attempts to “increase equity”.)
IMO, getting and having an education about race history is kind of the only way to end racism. It builds the context needed to have empathy. The end goal is to understand that there are different worldviews than our own, and they are also valid, even if they are different than ours.
It teaches the idea that someone who lives a few miles away might be living in a country where their family has had more experience with injustice than justice. It teaches white Americans the sheer scope of how racism shapes the world in a way that helps us to better understand the lived experiences of others. It strips away the comfortable layers of abstraction that allows us to keep distance from it. The same distance that allows racism to fester and grow.
It’s a tricky and insidious thing because our ideas about race starts with how we relate to people in general. The roots of it begin in what it means to be a human. To be humane. To have humanity.
THAT I think is the real issue the right has with “being woke”. That “anti-wokeness” is a dog whistle for really protesting at being shown the callousness of their worldview. That all humans should be shown human decency.
I’ve posed this question on social media: How is “cancelling” something or someone any different than expressing a preference for something in a free economy? Isn’t it just capitalism that some people don’t like?
It’s also important to understand that cultural changes (IMO) only successfully happen from within that culture. It’s why only black people can say the N-word and why only white people can end racism. It’s why it was white flight that ruined Detroit, not all the black kids that came when bussing started (as some of my family would tell you).
So, yeah. Ending racism can only be done by white people. And go look up why “reverse racisim” isn’t a thing if you’re unfortunate enough to think it might be.
I have to step off this soapbox and go do Christmas stuff now.
It's Purity Spiral Morality, and I'm sick of it too. Mostly because it gives far too much power to the negative forces of the world. Something was once associated with something bad? Gasp! It must...
It's Purity Spiral Morality, and I'm sick of it too. Mostly because it gives far too much power to the negative forces of the world. Something was once associated with something bad? Gasp! It must therefore be irredeemably evil as well! It is overly simplistic, and just fundamentally isn't a useful approach to the world.
The past is a foreign country. We should not expect it to conform to our current social mores. That doesn't mean it doesn't have anything to offer us.
The article ends in a tone that agrees with your sentiment: That was needlessly wordy for something that obvious. As a Black man myself, I don't see the benefit in white people trying to out-woke...
The article ends in a tone that agrees with your sentiment:
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 [my note: it is not], 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 was needlessly wordy for something that obvious.
As a Black man myself, I don't see the benefit in white people trying to out-woke each other about inconsequential historical trivia. I think the author more or less agrees with that conclusion. It's just a melody now. There's too much real, consequential racism in the world for me to obsess about a freaking melody from the 19th century that had racist lirycs in 1916.
That said, I'm not American. Things get pretty intense over there.
No? I don't think anyone here or in the article was trying to ruin anything. I haven't seen anyone saying not to enjoy the ice cream truck songs, or advocating to ban them. Theres zero rage from...
but doesn’t it get tiresome to hear about stuff like this all the time (let me ruin that thing you love or have nostalgia for)?
No? I don't think anyone here or in the article was trying to ruin anything. I haven't seen anyone saying not to enjoy the ice cream truck songs, or advocating to ban them. Theres zero rage from the original author either. He even wrote a follow up article after the first one.
I'm someone that goes down rabbit holes in general. Someone brings something up and well, now I'm going to learn about it. That means I'll often learn about racist (and sexist and homophobic, etc.) history, especially in the US. I don't go around trying to find those things unless I know I'm learning about something like the Tulsa massacre. It doesn't make sense to me to just pretend those things didn't happen and never talk about them.
But using the topic of this thread, a black writer shared a history, and his complex feelings about knowing this history while his kids hear nothing but the sounds of desserts. Where's the rage? The calls for banning? What has been ruined for people?
I was curious if that song ice cream trucks across the US play had a name. My search led to me learn some pretty dark things about it... It baffles me how many "wrongs" in our history haven't been...
I was curious if that song ice cream trucks across the US play had a name. My search led to me learn some pretty dark things about it...
It baffles me how many "wrongs" in our history haven't been corrected. (Some have specifically around Civil War / Confederacy imagery, but there's clearly many others that should be addressed.)
The number of times that I learned about something and find racism at the absolute root of it is far far too often. The US 's history is so incredibly deeply racist and it's so frustrating to...
The number of times that I learned about something and find racism at the absolute root of it is far far too often. The US 's history is so incredibly deeply racist and it's so frustrating to continue to hear responses to learning this history full of a desire to ignore it and pretend it didn't happen.
And now the decade after the original article with "don't tell us about it because it makes us feel bad. In fact, it's illegal to tell us about it."
Also relevant, the authors response to comments on that original article.
Also relevant, the authors response to comments on that original article.
It is important to recognize the impact racism has had on our country, even, perhaps especially, when it hides in the nooks and crannies of wholesome Americana. When black people hear and see those stereotyped presentations of blackness, we are told how America viewed us. And that has lasting, tangible effects. There can be no honest conversation on race issues today without an appreciation for this. It matters. And these depictions are far from antique notions. When Don Imus calls black women "nappy-headed hoes," this is language akin to portrayals of black femininity in blackface lyrics. This matters. When our first black president took office, corners of the Internet lit up with the very blackface exaggerations and stereotypes that were supposed to be obsolete and forgotten. This matters. And when just last week the North Korean dictator hurls racist insults - such as monkey and mixed- breed clown - at our commander in chief in language that directly harkens to the blackface era, it matters.
I had a much longer and more thought out comment, but Safari erased it when my finger touched the back button. Before recorded music, sets of lyrics were more loosely associated with tunes than...
I had a much longer and more thought out comment, but Safari erased it when my finger touched the back button.
Before recorded music, sets of lyrics were more loosely associated with tunes than anything. It was absolutely the norm for musicians to learn tunes and fit new lyrics to them (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star/Baa Baa Black Sheep/the alphabet song, for a simplistic example). In the Irish tradition, there is also The Wearing of the Green/The Rising of the Moon/the Irish Rovers' newer The Orange and the Green.
Some topical ones I'm partial to:
Union Dixie — Dixie, a minstrel show original, was widely refit by the North to sing about rolling down to the South to teach them a lesson.
John Brown's Body/Battle Hymn of the Republic — People nowadays are probably more familiar with lame-ass lyrics about marching saints, but once it was emblematic of the abolitionist movement and the fight against the South, with lyrics about marching with the spirit of the abolitionist John Brown to fuck up the South and hang Jefferson Davis.
I guess I'd be more surprised if a folk tune popular in the 19th century had not passed through the minstrel show circuit at some point. I wasn't aware of the less savory version of Turkey in the Straw until the NPR piece's original publication, but it doesn't really surprise me.
I mainly know the tune from the Doughnut Song. That's a pretty popular song at summer camps, so I imagine a majority of people would know the melody from that. Feels like a case where the tune has...
I mainly know the tune from the Doughnut Song. That's a pretty popular song at summer camps, so I imagine a majority of people would know the melody from that. Feels like a case where the tune has outlived the original song itself, if that makes sense?
It kind of makes me wonder about other songs with unknown horrible histories. Not in the racist American sense, but songs where the original version is totally lost. Folk music evolves over time, and there's a lot of songs and rhymes that have evolved over centuries. Some other melodies may have roots even darker than this, forever lost to history.
Huh, I didn't know Greensleeves was used! Sounds like the Mr. Whippy founder picked it? I have also heard "la cucaracha" and there's a different "common" song I've heard more of in the US that has...
Huh, I didn't know Greensleeves was used! Sounds like the Mr. Whippy founder picked it?
I have also heard "la cucaracha" and there's a different "common" song I've heard more of in the US that has a very annoying "Hello!" built into it that isn't the one in this article. Iirc there's some like oks specific vendor that sells the devices that play music in ice cream trucks
I've usually heard The Entertainer or Greensleeves. I can't say if I've heard Turkey in the Straw play from an ice cream truck for sure, but it definitely wasn't common anywhere I've lived.
I've usually heard The Entertainer or Greensleeves. I can't say if I've heard Turkey in the Straw play from an ice cream truck for sure, but it definitely wasn't common anywhere I've lived.
UK/AU/NZ? Greensleeves seems to be king in those places. There's gotta be someone that's chronicled a history of ice cream truck songs from the "why these are played" angle
UK/AU/NZ? Greensleeves seems to be king in those places.
There's gotta be someone that's chronicled a history of ice cream truck songs from the "why these are played" angle
Mostly northeastern US, but I did also spend a year in AU. Greensleeves was there, for sure. Entertainer is more common in New England. I'm currently in the Southern Midwest. I haven't made...
Mostly northeastern US, but I did also spend a year in AU. Greensleeves was there, for sure. Entertainer is more common in New England.
I'm currently in the Southern Midwest. I haven't made conscious note of any ice cream truck tunes yet, but I want to say it's Scott Joplin again.
Some Googling indicates that a company called Nichols Electronics has been the largest maker (in the US, at least) of ice cream truck music players since the 1950s, and the owner added The Entertainer to the catalog in the 1970s. (Jalopnik post) I figured the trends would be set by a supplier like that.
Growing up in Florida, I always heard "The Entertainer". I know the tune of the song in the article, but as the kids' nonsense song "Do Your Ears Hang Low?"... which may have similar origins, as...
Growing up in Florida, I always heard "The Entertainer". I know the tune of the song in the article, but as the kids' nonsense song "Do Your Ears Hang Low?"... which may have similar origins, as it turns out, but the Wikipedia page is pretty vague about it.
"Greensleeves" seems an oddly slow song to be an ice cream truck jingle, to me, but I suppose that's because I'm used to the ones with the more upbeat pace.
I grew up in south Florida and my thought on reading the headline but before reading the article was "is Turkey in the Straw racist??", but I also definitely feel like I heard The Entertainer...
I grew up in south Florida and my thought on reading the headline but before reading the article was "is Turkey in the Straw racist??", but I also definitely feel like I heard The Entertainer coming from ice cream trucks. Actually, I think the truck in our neighborhood played different songs sometimes? I feel like I remember the song changing in the middle sometimes and being kind of jarred by it.
I grew up in the US, but our local ice cream truck played Mona Lisa. Saves me from having any nostalgia tarnished I guess. Though I did immediately know which jingle they meant by "the ice cream...
I grew up in the US, but our local ice cream truck played Mona Lisa. Saves me from having any nostalgia tarnished I guess.
Though I did immediately know which jingle they meant by "the ice cream truck song" when I saw this post so
I had to do some digging to find what my local ice cream trucks played (Denver area), turns out it's Red Wing. I didn't know there were any other ice cream truck songs before this post, even.
I had to do some digging to find what my local ice cream trucks played (Denver area), turns out it's Red Wing.
I didn't know there were any other ice cream truck songs before this post, even.
From the article, I thought this was quite a good piece of writing:
From the article, I thought this was quite a good piece of writing:
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.
Isn't it fair to assume that most cultural things in the new world somehow interfaced with racism? I'm having a hard time understanding whether A) there's anybody left who would deny that bigotry...
Isn't it fair to assume that most cultural things in the new world somehow interfaced with racism?
I'm having a hard time understanding whether A) there's anybody left who would deny that bigotry was a large part of the colonial settler experience and B) why declarations that person X or Y wasn't likely a product of their time (and not ours) on some level.
My bad - autocorrect swapped declarations to delegations and I missed it. Regarding A, it's my experience that many of the types who claim on the surface that their (and their idol's) motivations...
My bad - autocorrect swapped declarations to delegations and I missed it. Regarding A, it's my experience that many of the types who claim on the surface that their (and their idol's) motivations and actions are pure and just will often fold when you ask them open ended questions about a colonial historical item (indigenous treatment, slavery, conquest of nations by others in Europe and Asia) will give a more moderate answer, especially when grilled on their Swiss cheese reasoning.
That said, they'll never cave to having whatever label their answers suggest they should have because they can't seem to draw a line between their experience ("Yeah, we did the Indigenous people wrong by moving in" or "I have a friend of ethnicity x and they're the exception to the stereotype) and what they're being told by whatever echo chamber they subscribe to.
I got scared this was about "Pop Goes the Weasel" which is also very popular for ice cream trucks (maybe more so). Thankfully it's not! Pop Goes the Weasel is comparatively wholesome and about...
I got scared this was about "Pop Goes the Weasel" which is also very popular for ice cream trucks (maybe more so). Thankfully it's not! Pop Goes the Weasel is comparatively wholesome and about pawning off your valuables to drink more or something
I'm not sure what you're trying to link because it isn't working, but Pop Goes the Weasel is not associated with minstrel shows. I can't find any actual documentation it was used in minstrel shows...
I'm not sure what you're trying to link because it isn't working, but Pop Goes the Weasel is not associated with minstrel shows. I can't find any actual documentation it was used in minstrel shows beyond a few google results speculating it was.
My previous comment Here's the direct link to the minstrel show lyrics from the LOC To be clear, it's the melody (and the most common one, not the "Popeye theme song" variant) not "the" Pop Goes...
My previous comment
Here's the direct link to the minstrel show lyrics from the LOC
To be clear, it's the melody (and the most common one, not the "Popeye theme song" variant) not "the" Pop Goes the Weasel lyrics, but that is the same thing the article is talking about
Minstrel show lyrics for Pop
When de night walks in, as black as a sheep,
And de hen and her eggs am fast asleep,
Den into her nest with a serpents creep
Pop goes de Weasel
Oh all de dance dat eh-her was plann'd
To galvanize de heel and hand
Dar's none dat moves so gay and grand
As "Pop Goes de Weasel"
De lover when he pants t'rough fear
Pop de question to his dear
He joins dis dance den in her ear
"Pop goes de Weasel"
From an English nonsense rhyme with any number of verses, it turned into an American blackface minstrel song with equally nonsensical verses. We own a few different arrangements of this version. Charley Twiggs’s 1855 song includes what seem to be the “standard” minstrel show verses, with the addition of a few more verses with topical political overtones.
Twiggs's version is the one linked. They do apparently have more though.
A great number of common songs have racist roots. jingle bells (minstrel show song) oh Susannah the American national anthem jump jim Joe (play party game), Johnny on the woodpile the cat came...
When will we stop digging through the entire history of humanity to find racist undertones in entertainment? My gosh, nobody associates these songs with anything but ice cream these days. Can we not just let these types of things be forgotten? These types of stories strike me as rage bait. Yes, I know “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it” etc. but doesn’t it get tiresome to hear about stuff like this all the time (let me ruin that thing you love or have nostalgia for)?
I both agree and disagree with your statement.
The part about frequently seeing "ruin this" type posts on the internet is annoying. It's why I typically steer away from communities for video games I like. It's much easier to post negativity, regardless of it's general negativity, rage bait, slander, witch hunts, etc. And people "love to hate," if you will. I think in a lot of contexts, this is a valid complaint. We should focus more on the positives in life, praise the things that bring us joy, and be supportive of people who need it.
However, I do believe that it is important to acknowledge history, and accepting ignorance by "forgetting" is ultimately a bad thing, especially in the context of racism and other issues where groups of people have been mistreated. This doesn't mean you have to feel guilt if you buy ice cream from an ice cream truck. The reality is the person running the truck likely has no idea of the song's past. And it doesn't become your job to inform them, either.
But bits of information like this can help produce change if shared with others, most notably with older teenagers who are still shaping into adults. I find it eye opening that so much media has these types of ties to horrible historical events, and it helps me develop an understanding for how deeply rooted racism is, and why it is necessary to fight against it, even as someone who is not part of this type of minority group.
I agree with pretty much everything you said. The one caveat I'd add is that there's a fine line between informing people while their worldview is still under construction and informing them while they're still too immature to care. Especially for teens, if you tell them that some melody used to be associated with super-racist lyrics, some non-trivial portion of them (almost exclusively male) will start looking for the most fitting metrical places to slot in the n-word.
Also, my hunch on the “rather remain ignorant” crowd is that it's driven by an annoyance at those who view it as their duty to inform others. As you say, it doesn't become your job to tell them. There'd be less resistance to learning if it were just another historical curiosity instead of followed with “…and we should do something about it.”
From personal experience, young white women can be just as eager to get the opportunity to say the n-word. If you think it's almost exclusively boys doing this, you just haven't interacted with enough conservative girls.
True, my female classmates weren’t conservative (they would later become Hillary Clinton megafans). I assumed it was boy-coded behavior because the boys doing that largely lacked fixed political positions and the girls didn’t join in.
Two points I disagree with here…. And then I go completely off the rails on one of my procrastinating anti-racist soapboxes here, so read if it’s entertaining I guess?
One is that you can’t expect to control someone about caring or not caring when you are teaching/informing. There are too many unknown variables. Inform, and the rest is up to the other party. Views change (hopefully for the better). Views built on education are usually better.
As for the whole “we should do something about that” resistance/resentment… IMO that’s a red herring used to bash the “woke left”. Teaching people all the ways racism is woven through our history and culture IS the “something”. (Ignoring some of the dumber lefty ideas around attempts to “increase equity”.)
IMO, getting and having an education about race history is kind of the only way to end racism. It builds the context needed to have empathy. The end goal is to understand that there are different worldviews than our own, and they are also valid, even if they are different than ours.
It teaches the idea that someone who lives a few miles away might be living in a country where their family has had more experience with injustice than justice. It teaches white Americans the sheer scope of how racism shapes the world in a way that helps us to better understand the lived experiences of others. It strips away the comfortable layers of abstraction that allows us to keep distance from it. The same distance that allows racism to fester and grow.
It’s a tricky and insidious thing because our ideas about race starts with how we relate to people in general. The roots of it begin in what it means to be a human. To be humane. To have humanity.
THAT I think is the real issue the right has with “being woke”. That “anti-wokeness” is a dog whistle for really protesting at being shown the callousness of their worldview. That all humans should be shown human decency.
I’ve posed this question on social media: How is “cancelling” something or someone any different than expressing a preference for something in a free economy? Isn’t it just capitalism that some people don’t like?
It’s also important to understand that cultural changes (IMO) only successfully happen from within that culture. It’s why only black people can say the N-word and why only white people can end racism. It’s why it was white flight that ruined Detroit, not all the black kids that came when bussing started (as some of my family would tell you).
So, yeah. Ending racism can only be done by white people. And go look up why “reverse racisim” isn’t a thing if you’re unfortunate enough to think it might be.
I have to step off this soapbox and go do Christmas stuff now.
It's Purity Spiral Morality, and I'm sick of it too. Mostly because it gives far too much power to the negative forces of the world. Something was once associated with something bad? Gasp! It must therefore be irredeemably evil as well! It is overly simplistic, and just fundamentally isn't a useful approach to the world.
The past is a foreign country. We should not expect it to conform to our current social mores. That doesn't mean it doesn't have anything to offer us.
The article ends in a tone that agrees with your sentiment:
That was needlessly wordy for something that obvious.
As a Black man myself, I don't see the benefit in white people trying to out-woke each other about inconsequential historical trivia. I think the author more or less agrees with that conclusion. It's just a melody now. There's too much real, consequential racism in the world for me to obsess about a freaking melody from the 19th century that had racist lirycs in 1916.
That said, I'm not American. Things get pretty intense over there.
No? I don't think anyone here or in the article was trying to ruin anything. I haven't seen anyone saying not to enjoy the ice cream truck songs, or advocating to ban them. Theres zero rage from the original author either. He even wrote a follow up article after the first one.
I'm someone that goes down rabbit holes in general. Someone brings something up and well, now I'm going to learn about it. That means I'll often learn about racist (and sexist and homophobic, etc.) history, especially in the US. I don't go around trying to find those things unless I know I'm learning about something like the Tulsa massacre. It doesn't make sense to me to just pretend those things didn't happen and never talk about them.
But using the topic of this thread, a black writer shared a history, and his complex feelings about knowing this history while his kids hear nothing but the sounds of desserts. Where's the rage? The calls for banning? What has been ruined for people?
I was curious if that song ice cream trucks across the US play had a name. My search led to me learn some pretty dark things about it...
It baffles me how many "wrongs" in our history haven't been corrected. (Some have specifically around Civil War / Confederacy imagery, but there's clearly many others that should be addressed.)
The number of times that I learned about something and find racism at the absolute root of it is far far too often. The US 's history is so incredibly deeply racist and it's so frustrating to continue to hear responses to learning this history full of a desire to ignore it and pretend it didn't happen.
And now the decade after the original article with "don't tell us about it because it makes us feel bad. In fact, it's illegal to tell us about it."
Also relevant, the authors response to comments on that original article.
...the thing about folk songs is that adaptations range as widely as do the folks who perform them: i'm partial to the animaniac's take...
I had a much longer and more thought out comment, but Safari erased it when my finger touched the back button.
Before recorded music, sets of lyrics were more loosely associated with tunes than anything. It was absolutely the norm for musicians to learn tunes and fit new lyrics to them (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star/Baa Baa Black Sheep/the alphabet song, for a simplistic example). In the Irish tradition, there is also The Wearing of the Green/The Rising of the Moon/the Irish Rovers' newer The Orange and the Green.
Some topical ones I'm partial to:
Union Dixie — Dixie, a minstrel show original, was widely refit by the North to sing about rolling down to the South to teach them a lesson.
John Brown's Body/Battle Hymn of the Republic — People nowadays are probably more familiar with lame-ass lyrics about marching saints, but once it was emblematic of the abolitionist movement and the fight against the South, with lyrics about marching with the spirit of the abolitionist John Brown to fuck up the South and hang Jefferson Davis.
I guess I'd be more surprised if a folk tune popular in the 19th century had not passed through the minstrel show circuit at some point. I wasn't aware of the less savory version of Turkey in the Straw until the NPR piece's original publication, but it doesn't really surprise me.
I mainly know the tune from the Doughnut Song. That's a pretty popular song at summer camps, so I imagine a majority of people would know the melody from that. Feels like a case where the tune has outlived the original song itself, if that makes sense?
It kind of makes me wonder about other songs with unknown horrible histories. Not in the racist American sense, but songs where the original version is totally lost. Folk music evolves over time, and there's a lot of songs and rhymes that have evolved over centuries. Some other melodies may have roots even darker than this, forever lost to history.
I honestly never realised that Greensleeves wasn't the ice cream song globally.
Huh, I didn't know Greensleeves was used! Sounds like the Mr. Whippy founder picked it?
I have also heard "la cucaracha" and there's a different "common" song I've heard more of in the US that has a very annoying "Hello!" built into it that isn't the one in this article. Iirc there's some like oks specific vendor that sells the devices that play music in ice cream trucks
And here I thought all ice cream trucks played "pop goes the weasel"!
Oh guess what else was turned into a blackface minstrel song in America?
Library of Congress, arrangement of Pop Goes the Weasel, 1885
I had no idea ice cream tricks could lead to such a dark and awful rabbit hole...
Every time I learn something about American history, there's something horribly racist under there.
I've usually heard The Entertainer or Greensleeves. I can't say if I've heard Turkey in the Straw play from an ice cream truck for sure, but it definitely wasn't common anywhere I've lived.
UK/AU/NZ? Greensleeves seems to be king in those places.
There's gotta be someone that's chronicled a history of ice cream truck songs from the "why these are played" angle
Mostly northeastern US, but I did also spend a year in AU. Greensleeves was there, for sure. Entertainer is more common in New England.
I'm currently in the Southern Midwest. I haven't made conscious note of any ice cream truck tunes yet, but I want to say it's Scott Joplin again.
Some Googling indicates that a company called Nichols Electronics has been the largest maker (in the US, at least) of ice cream truck music players since the 1950s, and the owner added The Entertainer to the catalog in the 1970s. (Jalopnik post) I figured the trends would be set by a supplier like that.
Growing up in Florida, I always heard "The Entertainer". I know the tune of the song in the article, but as the kids' nonsense song "Do Your Ears Hang Low?"... which may have similar origins, as it turns out, but the Wikipedia page is pretty vague about it.
"Greensleeves" seems an oddly slow song to be an ice cream truck jingle, to me, but I suppose that's because I'm used to the ones with the more upbeat pace.
I grew up in south Florida and my thought on reading the headline but before reading the article was "is Turkey in the Straw racist??", but I also definitely feel like I heard The Entertainer coming from ice cream trucks. Actually, I think the truck in our neighborhood played different songs sometimes? I feel like I remember the song changing in the middle sometimes and being kind of jarred by it.
I grew up in the US, but our local ice cream truck played Mona Lisa. Saves me from having any nostalgia tarnished I guess.
Though I did immediately know which jingle they meant by "the ice cream truck song" when I saw this post so
I had to do some digging to find what my local ice cream trucks played (Denver area), turns out it's Red Wing.
I didn't know there were any other ice cream truck songs before this post, even.
From the article, I thought this was quite a good piece of writing:
Isn't it fair to assume that most cultural things in the new world somehow interfaced with racism?
I'm having a hard time understanding whether A) there's anybody left who would deny that bigotry was a large part of the colonial settler experience and B) why declarations that person X or Y wasn't likely a product of their time (and not ours) on some level.
I don't understand what you're saying in B. But there are definitely many people that don't agree about A based on gestures at the state of the world
My bad - autocorrect swapped declarations to delegations and I missed it. Regarding A, it's my experience that many of the types who claim on the surface that their (and their idol's) motivations and actions are pure and just will often fold when you ask them open ended questions about a colonial historical item (indigenous treatment, slavery, conquest of nations by others in Europe and Asia) will give a more moderate answer, especially when grilled on their Swiss cheese reasoning.
That said, they'll never cave to having whatever label their answers suggest they should have because they can't seem to draw a line between their experience ("Yeah, we did the Indigenous people wrong by moving in" or "I have a friend of ethnicity x and they're the exception to the stereotype) and what they're being told by whatever echo chamber they subscribe to.
I got scared this was about "Pop Goes the Weasel" which is also very popular for ice cream trucks (maybe more so). Thankfully it's not! Pop Goes the Weasel is comparatively wholesome and about pawning off your valuables to drink more or something
I, um, have some bad news.
The lyrics aren't great.
What wouldn't Americans turn into minstrel acts?
I'm not sure what you're trying to link because it isn't working, but Pop Goes the Weasel is not associated with minstrel shows. I can't find any actual documentation it was used in minstrel shows beyond a few google results speculating it was.
My previous comment
Here's the direct link to the minstrel show lyrics from the LOC
To be clear, it's the melody (and the most common one, not the "Popeye theme song" variant) not "the" Pop Goes the Weasel lyrics, but that is the same thing the article is talking about
Minstrel show lyrics for Pop
When de night walks in, as black as a sheep,
And de hen and her eggs am fast asleep,
Den into her nest with a serpents creep
Pop goes de Weasel
Oh all de dance dat eh-her was plann'd
To galvanize de heel and hand
Dar's none dat moves so gay and grand
As "Pop Goes de Weasel"
De lover when he pants t'rough fear
Pop de question to his dear
He joins dis dance den in her ear
"Pop goes de Weasel"
There are more verses.
And here's an article from the LOC
Twiggs's version is the one linked. They do apparently have more though.
A great number of common songs have racist roots.
This article doesn't mention that RZA wrote a replacement jingle, although I'm not sure if it got adopted much. I hope it did.
We have Mister Softee here which has its own 75 year-old jingle. The lyrics are about ice cream.