Racist lyrics in Mercer set?

[medjuck]

Sorry to say I did not take time to read more than about a third of the posts.

BUT

I think the "American goal" is a point where this shit doesn't matter.

I'm there, others aren't.

What a shame for those not there yet, but no blame.

I enjoy/appreciate LeRoi Jones poems about "knives twisting in the bellies of Jews", so why can't I accept a fine, white songwriter singing an "embarrasing" song by a black composer? AND the song was written before the "offended" person was born!

I can't tell whether your claim of enjoyment of poems about "knives twisting in the bellies of Jews" is meant to be ironic or not. And if you'd read all of the posts you'd know that the lyrics aren't by a black composer. AND am I not supposed to be offended by Mein Kampf just because it was written before even I was born? (Actually I've never read Mein Kampf so I don't really know if I'd be offended-- but if it talked about "knives twisting in the bellies of Jews" I would be.)

And I don't think that it's any "shame" for Tranemonk as an African-American not to be where you are when it comes to what he percieves as racism.

Edited July 18, 2007 by medjuck

[Chuck Nessa]

Sorry to say I did not take time to read more than about a third of the posts.

BUT

I think the "American goal" is a point where this shit doesn't matter.

I'm there, others aren't.

What a shame for those not there yet, but no blame.

I enjoy/appreciate LeRoi Jones poems about "knives twisting in the bellies of Jews", so why can't I accept a fine, white songwriter singing an "embarrasing" song by a black composer? AND the song was written before the "offended" person was born!

I can't tell whether your claim of enjoyment of poems about "knives twisting in the bellies of Jews" is meant to be ironic or not. And if you'd read all of the posts you'd know that the lyrics aren't by a black composer. AND am I not supposed to be offended by Mein Kampf just because it was written before even I was born? (Actually I've never read Mein Kampf so I don't really know if I'd be offended-- but if it talked about "knives twisting in the bellies of Jews" I would be.)

And I don't think that it's any "shame" for Tranemonk as an African-American not to be where you are when it comes to what he percieves as racism.

My point is to take the material in context of the times.

No shame to anyone other than real bigots.

[JSngry]

I'm still kind of...stunned that CD Baby is carrying the Johnny Reb stuff and marketing it as "satire".

That's not cool.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

There's nowt so queer as folk.

To an outsider, this has been a most interesting and revealing thread.

MG

[AllenLowe]

1)" knives twisting in the bellies of Jews"

this is why I wear a metal abdominal truss - ever since I got that call to get my ass out of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001 - Irv called me and said, "oi, Al, get your tuchus down the stairs; some crazy goyim are coming in a plane. And I don't mean Sky King and his daughter Penny."

[Niko]

(Actually I've never read Mein Kampf so I don't really know if I'd be offended-- but if it talked about "knives twisting in the bellies of Jews" I would be.)

guess you'd be bored in the first place if you read all of it, and then maybe a little offended

[AllenLowe]

well, I'll say about Bush what I said about Hitler in 1932, and Wynton Marsalis in 1980 - and McGrubb in 2007:

"that guy will never last. Here today, gone tomorrow. Nobody'll listen to somebody as crazy as that."

Edited July 18, 2007 by AllenLowe

[Niko]

see Joseph Roth's "Spider's Web" (here for 1 cent) for the view's someone who had Hitler on the bill even before the events of 1923 (like Mein Kampf, it is - other than Roth's later works - not very well constructed, a sequel novel for some newspaper and he apparently lost interest near the end; but very interesting and funny to read...)

didn't know Marsalis was crazy, btw

[ghost of miles]

- ever since I got that call to get my ass out of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001 - Irv called me and said, "oi, Al, get your tuchus down the stairs; some crazy goyim are coming in a plane. And I don't mean Sky King and his daughter Penny."

Mr. Lowe's wit may also be the healing force of the universe.

[Big Beat Steve]

Are you sure there isn't some ethnic minority out there who'd resent being referred to as "goyim"?

[AllenLowe]

well, could be a problem - I did include, by the way, a Jewish minstrel tune on my new CD - I should post the lyrics here if I can pull them up -

[AllenLowe]

here they are -

In the Old Stetl (Where I was Born)

Down where the Cossacks scream

Shiksas bathing in the village stream

oy, life is just a Jew-boy’s dream

in the old stetl where I was born

children playing in the Russian air

the moil smiles because business is good everywhere

trying to circumcise that old grey mare,

in the old stetl where I was born

Taxman comes, I smile and say

“what do you have for me today?”

He says, “Every Jew is gonna have to pay and pay”

I just laugh and dance away…

So I go home and count my money

Cash is the Jew’s milk and honey

Smiling gold teeth, for life is sunny

In the old stetl where I was born

Here some news, a Bolshevik war?

Hey, that’s what the goyim are for.

I’m stayin’ here to read my book

in Bialystock, by the babbling brook -

Shabbas dovening, the cantor sighs,

Shiksa sweethearts with milky white thighs

The czar decrees, another Jew dies

In the old stelt where I was born

Still, you won’t find a single complaint

Is you is, or mamala, or is you ain’t?

Nobody's perfect and no Jew’s a saint

in the old stetl where I was born

[RDK]

Did you include a warning label or was your name on the CD enough?

Seriously, that's pretty cool.

[Niko]

Did you include a warning label or was your name on the CD enough?

Seriously, that's pretty cool.

love that song too, favorite bit is,

Taxman comes, I smile and say

“what do you have for me today?”

He says, “Every Jew is gonna have to pay and pay”

I just laugh and dance away…

[AllenLowe]

btw, I would recommend the biography of Johnny Mercer written by Philp Furia - Mercer's background was classic Southern genteel bourgeouisie; his social attitudes classic genteel/racially paternalistic. Still, a brilliant lyricist; also a pretty good singer (or maybe, song stylist) -

[RDK]

And i hear he made a fine mint julep.

[AllenLowe]

he also had a lot of sex with Judy Garland -

[Ken Dryden]

Don't forget the pc school districts that had George Washington's name removed because he was a slaveholder.

It is very difficult to apply today's standards to behavior of a half-century ago, though I guess Mosaic could have always removed the song or issued a warning in the liner notes, as did another record label where a hapless white announcer kept calling Fats Waller "boy" (which would be grounds for violence today).

[Alexander]

Don't forget the pc school districts that had George Washington's name removed because he was a slaveholder.

It is very difficult to apply today's standards to behavior of a half-century ago, though I guess Mosaic could have always removed the song or issued a warning in the liner notes, as did another record label where a hapless white announcer kept calling Fats Waller "boy" (which would be grounds for violence today).

Please, cite one incident when that has happened (the Washington thing). I seriously doubt it. PC hysteria has gotten out of hand in some cases, but I seriously doubt that any school has expunged Washington, Jefferson, or any other slave-holding founder. This smacks of Right-Wing hysteria.

[RDK]

first thing that popped up on Google...

http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/articles/news/nytimes.html

[Guy Berger]

Don't forget the pc school districts that had George Washington's name removed because he was a slaveholder.

It is very difficult to apply today's standards to behavior of a half-century ago, though I guess Mosaic could have always removed the song or issued a warning in the liner notes, as did another record label where a hapless white announcer kept calling Fats Waller "boy" (which would be grounds for violence today).

Please, cite one incident when that has happened (the Washington thing). I seriously doubt it. PC hysteria has gotten out of hand in some cases, but I seriously doubt that any school has expunged Washington, Jefferson, or any other slave-holding founder. This smacks of Right-Wing hysteria.

After some SERIOUS googling, I managed to find this:

link

edit: I see Ray beat me to it. There's also this:

less north Virginia schools named after individuals

Not something that I find to be particularly alarming.

FWIW, here at Yale there's been some controversy over Calhoun College. (I think it's fair to say that Calhoun is a far more controversial historical figure than George Washington.)

Guy

Edited July 18, 2007 by Guy

[ghost of miles]

A scroll of the posts in this thread leaves me with the impression that there's been more "offense" from those who claim tranemonk had no rational reason to be upset about the lyrics & lack of context/frame in the first place. He said it bothered him, I & a couple of other folks agreed that the song was problematic & suggested that Mosaic probably should've said something about it in the liners, as they have with past such songs. Not exactly a lynching party for the First Amendment, eh? AGAIN... this particular forum is not for the greater ills of society, etc. That's for the politics forum--whether or not we agree w/said division of the board, that's how it's run. If I want to knock the Roberts Court or Bush's abandonment of New Orleans or school kids getting killed in Chicago, that's where I go.

No time for Baraka & his Jew-baiting schtick either--I'll take Etheridge Knight over L/A any day. Glad he started the Jihad label so that we could have SUNNY'S TIME NOW, sorry that he had to appear on it himself. I've got L/A's reader & appreciate some of his earlier work (still rec BLUES PEOPLE as well as the essay collection BLACK MUSIC to others), but he's spotty at best after DUTCHMAN & well on his way to becoming the African-American Ezra Pound... though I'm not sure he's ever gotten to the level of the Cantos. Maybe history will judge him more kindly, but the anti-Semitic crap is what it is.

[ghost of miles]

Not much more to say, but the pattern here fits the pattern I see a LOT in this culture—something of a dubious nature is said or done, blacks/Asian-Americans/gays/Muslims/Jews/women object, white guys tell them they’re too sensitive & need to get over it. A pattern that happens over & over, actually. (And the spectre of numerous white posters telling a black poster to “get over it” because what he perceived as racism is, well, just him being oversensitive, or immature, or just somehow not as hip to history as the rest of us … uh, sets off all kinds of alarm bells with me. It’s not the first time I’ve seen it happen on a jazz discussion board, either—similar incidents at AAJ and Jazzcorner. Hey, this is OUR music now!) Sorry, but I don’t think we’ve come anywhere near to paying off the bad-karma bill that we ran up over the past several hundred years, to the point that we can say, “Uh, no need for integration plans, no need to take offense at racist content past or present…we’re all groovy now.” I know nobody here is saying that directly, or even thinks they’re saying it, but that’s what the underlying message ends up being. No, not every complaint of racism is necessarily valid, but I'd rather err on the side of caution, given the unholy things that have gone down in this country since Plymouth Rock landed on Malcolm X's ancestors. So if a poster in this community, a person of color, says, "You know, this really bothered me, I wish they would've framed this somehow," then I'm inclined to think he might be in the right.

Excellent post, ghost.

FWIW, this type of of chatisement of people of color who dare to present their feelings about insensitivity is the main reason I rarely post on this board these days. I find it arrogant in the extreme to tell someone who has suffered racism how they should respond to it.

Interesting that there's been no response/allusion to this post from Cali, who by the standards of this thread is evidently yet another "oversensitive" African-American.

[ghost of miles]

btw, I would recommend the biography of Johnny Mercer written by Philp Furia - Mercer's background was classic Southern genteel bourgeouisie; his social attitudes classic genteel/racially paternalistic. Still, a brilliant lyricist; also a pretty good singer (or maybe, song stylist) -

Yeah, I liked it a bit better than the Gene Lees one... and your background quote is what I was getting at in my first post in this thread. Re: Judy Garland, I read somewhere that Mercer's widow wouldn't let "I Remember You" be included in a posthumous anthology of his work (supposedly because it's about JG).

[Guy Berger]

Interesting that there's been no response/allusion to this post from Cali, who by the standards of this thread is evidently yet another "oversensitive" African-American.

David, I said this a few posts back, but I think you are mis-characterizing the bulk of the contributions to this thread.

Guy