In May, National Public Radio carried an essay arguing that the old American folk tune “Turkey in the Straw,” long the melody of choice for ice cream trucks, was really “horribly racist.” Of course, a tune can’t be racist unless it is intended to communicate a racist message, which is impossible if nobody who hears the music discerns racial animus. NPR took care of that in a hurry. As soon as that new bit of imaginary racism surfaced, I knew that this grand old tune, a standard for square dances, country fiddlers, blue-grass bands and of course, the Good Humor truck, was on the way to oblivion. I wrote..
“You know the next step, though, because it is so familiar. Some race-huckster…will seize on NPR’s piece, and organize a Good Humor boycott, and the weak and principle-free corporate executives will fold immediately, issue an apology, and change the tune played by the trucks…”
Shortly after the appearance of the NPR piece and its progeny, Audi began running a TV ad that involved an ice cream truck playing…”Turkey in the Straw.” Someone, I don’t know who, maybe my predicted race-huckster, maybe some internal political correctness watch-dog, maybe an NPR fan, intervened, and now, “Turkey in the Straw” is gone, replaced by the melody of “Pop Goes the Weasel.”
Mission accomplished, Race Grievance Hit Squad, NPR, Cultural Censors! American musical culture heritage is diminished, and a piece of music that entertained Americans of all races for centuries is on the way to extinction. You must be so proud.
I’m curious: what’s next on your hit list, “Huckleberry Finn”?
Ethics Alarms 
“Huckleberry Finn” was censored long ago, when they switched the initial letters.
Are you really making a dirty pun? You are and endless source of surprises.
Spoonerism.
I’m surprised that “Tom Sawyer” or “Huckleberry Finn” are still to be found in school libraries… or are they?
Well, they were at least were in mine (Huck’s adventures were required reading in one of my classes), and my old high school was pretty damn liberal. But Twain’s too awesome to go down to a bunch of grievance-mongers (indeed, they only make him stronger).
May it always remain so, Julian. But I dare not assume it, these days!
You are aware that both books contain the “N” word? So, yeah, they, one or both, may be next.
You know these people who are always so offended don’t really read these books otherwise Romeo and Juliet would have been banned long ago.
I can’t even imagine a childhood without TS and HF.
Of course, a tune can’t be racist unless it is intended to communicate a racist message
Question for clarification: are you implying that the racism cannot occur unless it is intended by the person doing the communication? Or is this qualification limited to songs?
My second thought is that it feels like your argument isn’t quite logical. Here’s how I follow it; since I am making some assumptions about what you might believe/feel/interpret, please feel free to correct me.
According to the NPR article, and a little inference, the chronology is thus:
1.) The song “Turkey in the Straw” was written to the lyrics of an even older song, “The (Old) Rose Tree”
2.) In the early 20th century, this tune was once again attached to new lyrics in a recording caled “N*gger Love A Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!”
3.) This recording included a section that went like this:
Browne: “You n*ggers quit throwin’ them bones and come down and get your ice cream!”
Black men (incredulously): “Ice Cream?!?”
Browne: “Yes, ice cream! Colored man’s ice cream: WATERMELON!!”
At this point, I cannot imagine that you, Jack Marshall, would disagree that this particular song is racist.
4.) The melody was already associated with racism when the watermelon song was written, because the tune had reached America in the 19th century through minstrel shows in a song called “Zip Coon.”
5.) The NPR article makes the factual claim that the reason this melody is associated with ice cream is because ice cream parlors played the popular minstrel songs of the day.
Thus, when ice cream trucks began playing the tune to this song, absent lyrics, they were not intended or understood to be playing “Turkey in the Straw.” That wasn’t a minstrel song, and it wasn’t about ice cream (see the quoted text above.)
I suspect that you would agree that playing a minstrel song to advertise ice cream is racist.
6.) The song was so ubiquitously associated with ice cream trucks that they kept it for decades, and by 2014 very few, if any people remembered the minstrel connection. It is safe to say that modern ice cream businesses used the song and thought the melody was “Turkey in the Straw,” and that they did not–as you say in your post–intend any racist message.
At this point, if I am understanding your argument, you are saying that the meaning of the song has changed in the public consciousness. Because Americans believed the tune to be “Turkey in the Straw” and not, say “Zip Coon,” then the melody _was_ “Turkey in the Straw,” since it’s the same tune.
In other words, what I interpret your post to mean is that whatever racist connotation the tune had in 1916 had _changed_ by 2014.
Would that be a reasonable interpretation of why you think the song wasn’t racist in the modern era?
No.
The most famous, most popular, most sung lyrics to THAT TUNE are the lyrics to “Turkey in the Straw.” As they were when ice cream trucks used the song…they were selling ice cream to whites, primarily, as well as blacks. Choosing the one set of lyrics to a tune with many meanings, lyrics and contexts is classic race-baiting, political correctness tactics. (Another similar phenomenon is the Washington Redskins flap.)
Nobody has associated the song with racism for almost 100 years. I am pretty astute at popular culture history and musicology. During teh 40s, 50s and 60s the tune was ubiquitous…played in schools, used in cartoons, danced to, used in moves, never with racist meaning or intent. The 1916 song was completely forgotten and irrelevant. Those were no longer lyrics to a tune that had lost any racial inferences. Mid-20th century. So now, a half century later, the dredged up reminder of a tasteless song at the height of Jim Crow makes the TUNE racist? Illogical, unreasonable, absurd.
And again, music, without lyrics, is neither racist or non-racist. The music written by Austrian composer Joseph Haydn in 1797 as an anthem for the birthday of Emperor Francis II of the Holy Roman Empire is not anti-Semitic because it later became the Nazi German theme song. Bob Dylan used the tune of the old slave song called “No more auction block for me” as the basis for “Blowin’ in the Wind”. If I do a NPR piece on how the tune once was associated with slavery, is it tasteless to play it after that?
It’s ridiculous, and wrong, Phil. As I wrote in the original post, if the tune isn’t about Andrew Jackson–as it was at one point—then it’s not about watermelon or racism. It’s a tune…and theses day, for decades, about turkeys in the straw.
Just to clarify, when I said “At this point, I cannot imagine that you, Jack Marshall, would disagree that this particular song is racist.”– I was referring specifically to the song called “N*gger Love A Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!”
The lyrics in 1916 were racist. SOME lyrics in the tunes long history were racial in nature before that. Many were not. The tune is no more or less “racist” than any music. If someone not knowing the racist lyrics uses the tune for the enjoyment of someone who is not supposed or expected to take a racial meaning from it, then racism is 100% irrelevant.
Jack, it sounds like you disagree with the claim in the NPR article that the reason ice cream trucks used this melody is because ice cream parlors commonly played minstrel songs.
The article is not claiming that ice cream parlors were playing “N*gger loves watermelon.” It’s claiming that they were playing the popular minstrel song, “Zip Coon.”
So, leaving ethics out of the question for a moment, it sounds like you disagree with the factual claim that ice cream parlors and their ice cream trucks were intentionally playing the melody to the song “Zip Coon.” You’re saying that, even at the time, they were intending to play the innocuous song “Turkey in the Straw.”
Is that a reasonable gloss on your stance?
I’m saying they played a tune because it is a well known, catchy tune, and its various uses and lyrics were 100% irrelevant. To the claim that tune was used because they were used by blackface singers (rather than because they were popular tunes, which incidentally were used in minstrel shows…and lots of other ways), I say “Prove it.”
If someone plays the melody to “Over the Rainbow,” is the intent to evoke “The Wizard of Oz,” Judy Garland, the abuse of child actors, or the longing of gays to be accepted, as a recent NPR story noted. Is the tune from the second act of Pirates of Penzance a profane drinking song (“What the hell to we care?”) or a call for illegal activity (“Let’s vary piracy with a little burglary!”) Does “The Yellow Rose of Texas” evoke prostitution, or The Texas Rangers? Is the tune “I’ve been working on the Railroad” or “The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You”? The later version was made a prominent feature of the score to John Wayne’s “The Alamo”—should the bare tune offend Mexican Americans? Is “Greensleaves” now offensive to atheists because a Christmas carol uses its tune? If you first heard the song “Singin’ in the Rain” while Malcolm McDowell was singing and raping a woman )and in “A Clockwork Orange,” is that tune now offensive to women?
Jack, you’re not being clear.
First you say:
I’m saying they played a tune because it is a well known, catchy tune, and its various uses and lyrics were 100% irrelevant.
Then you say:
To the claim that tune was used because they were used by blackface singers (rather than because they were popular tunes, which incidentally were used in minstrel shows…and lots of other ways), I say “Prove it.”
That second statement is a red herring. Since you have already clearly stated that the various uses and lyrics were completely irrelevant, then even if someone proves the claim that the tune was used because it was a minstrel song associated with ice cream, it doesn’t matter, does it?
Can you see how one sentence does not logically follow the other?
I’m open to the idea that a melody should not be saddled with an offensive interpretation unless there is a really solid, strong reason to do so. But I think the claim that a tune can _never_ carry an offensive connotation is a little naive.
Have you seen the movie “Clerks 2” where one character uses the term “porch monkey” and then is informed by another character that it’s a racial slur against black people, and his response is “No, it’s not!” He then takes the attitude that because he doesn’t _intend_ the word as a slur against black people, it therefore isn’t racist, and he tries to use it for the rest of the movie in an effort to “reclaim” it.
If you can get past the coarseness and frequent juvenile humor, you might, as an ethicist, really enjoy “Clerks 2.”
1. They don’t have to follow the other. Either is sufficient to invalidate the NPR argument. It’s called “arguing in the alternative.”
2. Re “porch monkey.” See “The Niggardly Principles,” though “porch monkey” is a bad example. If a term (or a song) only has ONE logical meaning, the argument that it doesn’t have to mean that is Humpty-Dumptyism. It means what it means. If the meaning is legitimately ambiguous—and music is by definition ambiguous, then intent and context is what matters.
3. Seen it. I agree with you.
Formally speaking, “Huckleberry Finn” has not been banned anywhere. Most libraries still have it on their shelves, and it continues to grace the shelves of more bookstores than not. But, yes, it has been removed from some school reading lists because of a few craven officials who find it easier to cave when illiterate would-be censors come around than to defend a book, no matter how much of a classic. A Mr. Alan Gribben, a professor of English and who really ought to know better, has even produced a bowdlerized version of Huck Finn in which each use of the term “nigger” is replaced by “slave.” So, it might be slightly premature to claim victory for Twain’s classic, though it is, mostly, holding its own so far.
Jack,
Wasn’t “Pop Goes the Weasel” played by the shore of Lake Tahoe, in an early scene of “Godfather Part II,” as a sort of improvised brush-off by the hired band, after the band was hounded by a drunken…can’t remember the character’s name, but an old New York friend of The Family and the late Don Vito…who stormed the band box while angry about no Italian music being played? (or angry about no Italians being in the band?)
Wasn’t the sudden breaking-out of that song in that scene at least partly meant, merely by its being played, as a slur against Italian-Americans?
We must be extra diligent, to hunt down and censor all the offensive and hateful music which we have been polluting our minds with for so long. Call me petty, but one quick recall of the American POWs singing The Star Spangled Banner amidst their captors is enough to sway me toward the side of censoring the tunes as well as the lyrics. Think CLEANSING and PURITY, Jack; it’s the wonderful new world of correctness we live in.
Frankie Pentangeli asks the band to play the Tarentella, and the closest the WASPs can come is “Pop Goes The Weasel”…