I know that tune as Turkey in the Straw. Looks like it has a long and varied history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_in_the_Straw

Isn't that just the melody of Turkey in the Straw? Or am I missing something? I didn't listen the whole way through.

Yep, that tune is "Turkey in the Straw" and as an American classical instrumentalist, I've come across it many times. I had no idea that it started off as a coon song - nor did I even know what a coon song was until this post brought it to my attention. I will definitely be wary of any ragtime folk tune from now on and make special attempts to research and avoid playing any tunes with racist history. I'd love to see Lisa do a post on coon songs in general, and how often we come across them with our contemporary ears.

To me this tune brings to mind the lyrics "Do your ears hang low/Do they wobble to and fro..." I'd say that is far, far better known among American children (as well as ice-cream truck drivers!) than a obscure century-old racist recording. So to say that ice cream trucks play a racist song is a huge stretch. More accurately the same melody has been used over the generations set to different words. The fact that some lyric writers chose racist words does not make this is a racist melody.

When I was a kid in Texas during the 1970's, this tune was used with these lyrics:

I'm a Tex, I'm a Tex, I'm a Texas star,

And I come from the West where the cowboys are;

I can ride 'em, I can rope 'em, I can show you how it's done;

Come on, you cowboys with your six-shooter guns.

I wonder if this began as a racist song or if this recording just set its lyrics to a familiar tune? I also know it as Turkey in the Straw. Here is what Wikipedia has on Turkey in the Straw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_in_the_Straw

I know this as the "bow-legged chicken" song ("I'm a bow-legged chicken, I'm a knock-kneed hen/Never been so happy since I don't know when/And I walk with a wiggle and a squiggle and a squawk/Doin' the Tennessee wig walk"... and yes, there was a dance).

Which, as others have mentioned, raises the question of whether a folk tune with many iterations can really be racist.

Divorced from history the relationship between African-Americans and watermelon can be mocked as a fetish, but watermelon provides many benefits as a filtered water and nutrients that stave off illnesses, some that blacks have historically suffered more than people of other ancestral histories, like glaucoma, and more.

Watermelon was an important crop grown by slaves whose masters let them have a garden plot. Since the plots they were given were of marginal quality, slaves raised crops in them that weren't so demanding. Aside from the little bit of self-sufficiency provided by raising some of their own food and it's contribution to their health, many slaves were able to sell some of their produce by trading among themselves and by selling to whites. The gardens could be tended by slaves that could no longer do the work that whites required to them, so also provided old slaves with a way to make meaningful contributions to the living standards of their fellow slaves.

Historically, watermelon, collard greens, okra, squash, etc. have far more meaning than appealing to ethnic tastes. A lot of poor rural whites with marginal farmland might want to take note.

I posted a comment* about Black Americans and watermelon in the earlier Sociological images post that you linked to.

*using the screen name "cocojams jambalayah".

Here's one portion of that comment:

"Click http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/coon/ for information about the Black people as coon stereotype.

The emphasis on Black people gorging on watermelons in that coon meme is much more than watermelon being "a symbol of simplicity. and Black people being happy as enslaved, and not needing "the complicated responsibilities of freedom.

That emphasis on gorging reinforces the "Black people as child, uncivilized person, and/or as animal" construction, as a civilized, mature person would be able to stop eating foods or deserts, even if those foods or deserts are delicious."
-snip-
Furthermore, the meme about Black people gorging on watermelon suggest the blackfaced minstrel stereotype of Black people as coons as slices of watermelon can be cut to resemble a very wide grin.

Finally, here's a link to a post on my cultural blog about the Zip Coon stereotype:
http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2011/10/deconstructing-caricature-of-zip-coon.html

And no, I don't think that the tune or words to "Turkey In The Star" is racist. However,the Black people/watermelon/coon meme is racist.

That's just not really true. Like many folk songs, people have made up lots of different lyrics to fit the tune. Broadsheet balladeer style. The ice cream trucks are playing a tune that is much older than this racist set of lyrics.

http://www.contemplator.com/america/turkeyis.html

As for me, I think the lyrics go:

"I had a little chicken and she wouldn't lay an egg
so I poured hot water up and down her leg
O the little chicken hollered and the little chicken begged
and the little chicken laid me a hard-boiled egg."

The song is also "Turkey in the Straw" and "Do Your Ears Hang Low?"

I'd never heard of this nasty song at all.

Thank you, previous commenters. I want to reiterate basically everything that was said, it's a folk song called Turkey in the Straw, and like folk songs, different lyrics were set to the tune over the years, some racist, some not, blah blah blah...

Another delightful song using the melody: Wakko's America. http://zui.com/videos/wakkos-america-song-by-wakko-warner

it is a really old tune that has evidently adapted itself to any verbal message. I remember the tune from childhood but the words were: Did you ever ever ever in your long legged life see a long legged spider with a long legged wife... and so on. The melody itself doesn't seem to be racist but the watermelon words certainly are.

Another set of lyrics I learned for this was:
Well I ran around the corner and I ran around the block
And I ran right into a doughnut shop
And I picked up a doughnut fresh from the grease
And I handed the lady a five cent piece

Well she looked at the nickle and she looked at me
And she said "this nickle isn't good for me.
There's a hole in the middle and it goes right through"
And I said, "There a hole in my doughnut too"

Up until fairly recently, the tune of popular songs had basically
nothing to do with any individual writer or set of lyrics. Most religious
hymns written prior to the early 1900s were drinking songs, because predominantly illiterate peasants and factory workers couldn't reasonably be expected to read sheet music and unique lyrics out of hymnals every time they went to church. Relative
lack of copyright laws allowed a lot of tunes with completely unknown origins to make their ways into public knowledge through drinking songs, nursery rhymes, religious songs, and yes, at that point in history, racist minstrel songs. I'd be 100% shocked if you could find any evidence that this is the first version of the song that ever existed. It was almost certainly adapted for the blackface stage from some pre-existing tune thought up by children, drunks, churchgoers, or even slaves themselves.

Something else I've noticed, but is this song just completely unknown on the West coast entirely, or only known by ice cream men and Jibbs? Because I learned both "Turkey in the Straw" and "Do Your Ears Hang Low" at a very young age, but have in the last few weeks heard a shocking number of people from CA and AZ say they have never heard of either song, or only heard of it from the fairly recent rap song.

Great, now it's stuck in my head. Note to self: do not absent-mindedly sing this in public.

Others have sourced the melody of Turkey in the Straw back to before 1820. (Before the black/watermelon meme became prominent). Any evidence that this song which uses part of the tune predates the tune?

USians only have one ice-cream song? Ours have loads! Things like greensleeves, Pop Goes the Weasel or other trad. tunes

When I was in elementary school, we learned a song that listed all the states in alphabetical order to this tune, though it is definitely not a folk song, just a repurposing:

Alabama and Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, and Connecticut and more, Deleware Florida Georgia and Hawaii Idaho etc.

I know that tune with different lyrics. I had a little chickie and he wouldn't lay an egg, so I poured hot water up and down his leg, the little chickie hollered and the little chickie begged, and the little chickie laid me a hard boiled egg.

I don't know if anyone's commented on this already but my church camp sings it as a silly song called "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" There's no mention of gender or race in the song but low hanging ears could be a trope I'm not familiar with considering the tune's history.

Okay, so, let's say Turkey in the Straw is older. & you all acknowledge that It was performed by minstrels in blackface. Uh in case you didn't realize it, white men performing in blackface is considered a stereotype.

It is now four days since this article was posted, and Dr. Wade has posted again in that interval, so we can be sure her attentions are not consumed with some other urgent matter.

In those four days, many helpful commenters have pointed out that the song in question is "Turkey in the Straw," an American folk classic. This song has its own complicated racial history, and that's an interesting subject in itself. That people recorded and sold a version of the song with the appalling lyrics referenced in this post is also interesting--and a piece of American history we are losing touch with, as our distaste for such things sweeps them further and further under the rug. It's the sort of thing we should force ourselves to look at once in a while when thinking about our past in this country. I didn't know it existed, and I'm--well, "pleased" isn't the word--but I'm better informed from reading this piece.

But, the statement that leads this article, "one of the tunes that float out of ice cream trucks all summer is a racist song called 'N-- Love a Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha,'" is flatly, utterly wrong. The tune is "Turkey in the Straw." That Harry C. Browne once recorded this vile set of lyrics to the tune does not enter into it.

(Incidentally, the UK doesn't play "My Country Tis of Thee" when they win a gold medal.)

Blogs aren't refereed journals, and there are different expectations for research. But blogs also ought to correct promptly when errors are pointed out. There's a important story behind this old recording; but it is not that it has become the anthem of our ice cream trucks.

The music from in this song is from "Turkey In The Straw", which predates the song you are writing about by almost a century. Please do stronger research instead of trying to rile everyone up about racism lurking under ever stone.

I've heard that tune used in a number of old, and not so old, films with various lyrics. I believe it was used for a number of comedic 'music hall' songs. Given how often acts would change and evolve, and that one show could contain 20 songs or more, it made sense to reuse the same tunes with different words as that way the orchestra didn't have to learn new tunes each week.

It's had various lyrics over years, there was one from the 1940s that seemed to be about having sex with a one-legged woman, another was about torturing a chicken. But it seems unfair to ban a tune just because of all the rouge lyrics people have written for it.

Quaker children everywhere recognise this tune as a song about George Fox, founder of the Religious Society of Friends (commonly known as Quakers). Words and lyrics by Sidney Carter.

There's a light that is shining in the heart of a man,
It's the light that was shining when the world began.
There's a light that is shining in the Turk and the Jew
And a light that is shining, friend, in me and in you.

CHORUS:
Walk in the light, wherever you many be,
Walk in the light, wherever you may be!
"In my old leather breeches and my shaggy shaggy locks,
I am walking in the glory of the light," said Fox.

With a book and a steeple, with a bell and a key
They would bind it forever but they can't (said he).
Oh, the book it will perish and the steeple will fall
But the light will be shining at the end of it all.

CHORUS

"If we give you a pistol, will you fight for the Lord?"
"But you can't kill the Devil with a gun or a sword!"
"Will you swear on the Bible?" "I will not!" said he,
"For the truth is more holy than the book to me."

CHORUS

There's an ocean of darkness and I drown in the night
Till I come through the darkness to the ocean of light,
For the light is forever and the light it is free
"And I walk in the glory of the light," said he.

CHORUS

No doubt, is was a parody version of Turkey in the Straw (which preceded this recording by a hundred years), but that would not fit the agenda of this race-baiting, liberal-twerp author.

PhD, indeed... Evil. Just evil...

Look at all these white people trying to whitesplain why this tune isn't racist anymore.

I thought it went do your balls hang low swingin to and fro

Some of the Ice Cream Trucks in our area of Suburban Southeastern PA must have got word of this as a few have switched the tune they now play to "Pop Goes the Weasel".

Isn't the tune that of "Turkey in the Straw"?

it appears as though the music behind the song was around for a long time before any lyrics that we have, and that people have just used the tune because to a certain degree it was public domain., or just having been around for a long, long, time

When the Ice Cream truck came down our street back in the 50s all the
white kids would rush up to the window and buy their special treat. All
of the black kids would steal our bikes. Really.

"Still, the fact that the tune is an ice cream truck classic reveals how
our racist history is still part and parcel of our everyday lives."

That's quite a stretch, considering that the tune has other lyrics and names as well - and that this recording is nearly 100 years old.

this is not racist in the context of the time period it is from, if this offends you more than the lyrics to many rap songs then people need to get a grip..

I'm white I love watermelon and I wouldn't be offended if a black singer song it as Honky love a watermelon ha ha ha

That song was around as "Do your ears hang low" during the US revolution and was a song bragging about the singers...endowments using "ears" as a euphemism for something else that might hang low. "Can you throw it over your shoulder like a Continental Soldier?"

Turkey In The Straw is not a folk classic, it is a minstrel song. It was only ever popular as a minstrel song, no one had heard of it before it became a minstrel song. In the context of ice cream and ice cream trucks, it refers to the song above. Deal with it. Play different music on your damn ice cream trucks.

Think about these songs: ABC song, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star: same melody.
Of course there are those that put crude, racist words to melodies we already know.
Our world is in a sad state right now. Let’s all try to find the good in one another.

I never associated the tune “Turkey in the Straw”,with Black people, ever. I do associate it with rural, White farmers from places like Iowa and Nebraska. The dirty parody of it is: “Oh, the farmer had a horse and he thought it was a cow, when he went to milk it, he didn’t know how, so he pulled on its tail, instead of on it’s tit, and all he got was a bucket full of shit!”

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This is a great song. My son often listens to this song to play and sleep. Maybe, I will use it as my phone ringtone iphone 着信音

This is false. This is not the same racist song this is a song called The Entertainer by Scott Joplin an African American jazz artist and was written before the 1900s. Get your facts straight before you spread misinformation.