But that decision raises even more questions: what kind of music are we censoring? What kind of music are we preserving? And who decides this?Īt NPR, Johnson struggled with similar questions when faced with whether or not to tell his children about the origins of the ice cream truck song. These songs, many of which are still sung today, aren't just uncomfortable because of their lyrics most were used in minstrel/blackface performances in the past.Īn unavoidable question arises: what do you do with these songs? Ban them? Stop singing them? Change them? For the most part, schools in the U.S. Should we change the songs if we know they're offensive? Should we ban them? There's a deliberate choice here to make the singer sound unsophisticated. The meaning: The vocabulary used by lyricist Stephen Foster is meant to mimic black speech.
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The original lyrics: "De Camptown ladies sing dis song - Doo-dah! Doo-dah!/ I come down dah wid my hat caved in - Doo-dah! Doo-dah!/ I go back home wid a pocket full of tin - Oh! Doo-dah day!" In the song, the singer can't grasp the ideas of temperature and geography. The meaning: The protagonist of the song is an African-American slave who is portrayed as dumb and naive.
The original lyrics: " It rain’d all night de day I left, De wedder it was dry, The sun so hot I froze to def." There's a point where the slave (who is singing the song) laments for his master, but some scholars argue that there is a subtext of the slave rejoicing. The meaning: The song is about a slave and the death of his master. The words: " Ol' massa's gone and I'll let him rest/ They say all things are for the best/ But I'll never forget 'til the day I die…" The officials at Anderson Middle School removed the song from the program after a complaint. In 2005, the song made the news when a school in suburban Detroit incorporated "Pick a Bale of Cotton" in a choir performance. The song can be seen as glorifying and poking fun at slave conditions. Gotta jump down, turn around, Oh, Lordie, pick a bale a day." There's also another version that goes The words: "Jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton. The jury did not side with the plaintiffs, and though they appealed, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the initial ruling. The black plaintiffs in that case sued the airline for discrimination because a flight attendant had used the rhyme while urging them to take their seats. It was actually a part of a 2004 lawsuit against Southwest. There's an idea that it comes from slave selection or a description of what white slave owners would do if they caught a runaway slave. The meaning: The meaning of this rhyme is rooted in the slave trade. Eenie, meenie, minie mo." An alternate version: "Catch a negro by his toe/ If he hollers make him pay/Twenty dollars every day." "Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo" ( Early 19th Century) Johnson's piece got us thinking about the songs like the ice cream truck song - a seemingly innocuous folk song, nursery rhyme, or jingle - that we may not have known were racist, and what we should do when we learn about their histories. Whenever I hear the music now, the antique voice laughing about niggers and watermelon fills my head," Johnson wrote. " When the reach of racism robs me of fond memories from my childhood, it feels intensely personal again.
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The song's melody, it turns out, was popularized in antebellum minstrel shows where the lyrics "parodied a free black man attempting to conform to white high society by dressing in fine clothes and using big words." To make matters worse, that song became the basis for an offensive folk song in 1916 titled, "Nigger Love A Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!" before turning into the melody that beckons ice cream seekers today.įor Theodore Johnson III, who wrote the article, knowledge of that history ruined ice cream trucks for him. There is some offensive language below.Ī little over a week ago, NPR had an illuminating and poignant report on the the racist beginnings of the ice cream truck song. Warning: We are talking about racism in this article.
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