Ask Lemmy

27006 readers

1684 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

candyman337

[email protected]

139

What songs does your local Ice Cream Van play? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

90 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Ours plays the 1979 hit Music Box Dancer which is weird because it's definitely not public domain.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=GoQzA8NTuLA

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Apparently that turkey in the straw one is super racist- or rather the lyrics of the version that took off and led to ICT fame. I swear ours still plays it.. I’ll have to listen closely next time I happen to hear it.

The first and natural inclination, of course, is to assume that the ice cream truck song is simply paying homage to "Turkey in the Straw," but the melody reached the nation only after it was appropriated by traveling blackface minstrel shows. There is simply no divorcing the song from the dozens of decades it was almost exclusively used for coming up with new ways to ridicule, and profit from, black people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Perhaps I'm naive. I looked up the lyrics and found one spot in them where, yes, for sure, that's racist. However, it's akin to Enie meenie miney moe, where a slight change could make the song suitable again.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/05/11/310708342/recall-that-ice-cream-truck-song-we-have-unpleasant-news-for-you

I already posted the relevant bit above. The history of this song in ice cream trucks was absolutely racist.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Something isn't meshing with my app, or whatever. I swear I saw your comment but it disappeared and the one I replied to remained.

Ok, so we are both right it turns out: Turkey in the Straw is as I described (one racist passage), but was used as the tune for the ice cream truck song which was a bajillion times worse, Holy cow.

Fuck things were bad back then.