[78-L] Song "The Broken Record"

Sat Jan 24 20:50:28 PST 2009

I've got another idea...something has been bothering me about a song lyric 
ever since I first heard it 30 years ago.

You know that silly novelty tune from late '35 called "The Broken Record"? 
There are several versions of it including a Mound City Blue Blowers on 
Champion and a Freddy Martin on Br (my taste or lack thereof runs the 
gamut).

OK...at one point the lyric makes mention about how,  while playing said 
record of the title,  that "the needle stuck on the broken half,  and kept 
playing, and saying...."

HOW is this possible?  I mean...how the Hell can ONE half of the record be 
broken without the other half being just as broken?  "The broken half"...and 
the other half is....intact?

This has always been one of the most irritating examples of lazy lyric 
writing I could think of...help me achieve "closure" on this so I can move 
on to,  and obsess about,  some other example of  musical/verbal idiocy!

Taylor

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bud Black" <banjobud at cfl.rr.com>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2009 8:38 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Stephen Foster

> Hey, I've got a splendid idea on how to break this stupid thread.  Let's
> discuss the pros and cons of abortion on demand.  That subject has about 
> as
> much relevance to 78 rpm records as this one.
>
> Bud
>
> -------Original Message-------
>
> From: Tom
> Date: 1/24/2009 7:06:42 PM
> To: 78-L Mail List
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Stephen Foster
>
> Jews were enslaved in the U.S.?
>
> Yet another revelation about U.S. history for the previously uninformed. 
> You
> don't see any irony, I guess, in a guy like Jolson, who was a Jew from
> Lithuania and who had probably experienced some degree of anti-Semitism
> during his life, coming to the U.S. and putting on blackface and
> pejoratively stereotyping African Americans to further suppress them?
>
>
> --- On Sat, 1/24/09, Bud Black <banjobud at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
>
> From: Bud Black <banjobud at cfl.rr.com>
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Stephen Foster
> To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Date: Saturday, January 24, 2009, 2:19 PM
>
> No, but the Jews certainly were.  So let's ban all references to, "My
> Yiddisha Mama," "When Yiddle Plays His Fiddle," "Cohen Owes
> Me Ninety-Seven
> Dollars," and all the recordings of Myron Cohen.
>
> C'mon, let's get real!  Why can't we enjoy the music and humor of
> the past
> without necessarily condoning it's shortcomings by today's standards?
> Just
> because I enjoy the singing and infectious laughter of Arthur Collins 
> doesn
> t make me a charter member of the KKK.  And if somebody has a problem with
> what I enjoy, I don't particularly give a tinker's damn.
>
> Bud
>
> -------Original Message-------
>
> From: fnarf at comcast.net
> Date: 1/23/2009 7:12:12 PM
> To: 78-L Mail List
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Stephen Foster
>
> Of course there were other ethnic stereotypes. But Germans and Scotsmen 
> were
> never enslaved, were they?
>
> --
> Steve.
>
>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: "Bud Black" <banjobud at cfl.rr.com>
>> And all Scotsmen are cheapskates.  And all Irishmen are drunks.  And all
>> Germans are war-like.
>>
>> -------Original Message-------
>>
>> From: fnarf at comcast.net
>> Date: 1/23/2009 5:38:44 PM
>> To: 78-L Mail List
>> Subject: Re: [78-L] Stephen Foster
>>
>> "Gwine" instantly identifies the speaker as African-American. As
> for
>> demeaning, the song clearly portrays blacks as childlike, fun-loving but
>> unsophisticated, and so on. This is clearly demeaning, and plays into
> common
>> perceptions of black intellect. Darkies love to bet on horses all day, 
>> isn
> t
>> that cute?
>>
>> --
>> Steve.
>>
>>   -------------- Original message ----------------------
>> From: lizmcl at midcoast.com
>> > > Chris Zwarg:
>> > >
>> > >> First of all, there is NOT ONE WORD in the whole lyrics that
> says
>> > >> anything about
>> > >> the ethnicity of either the singer nor the ladies, nor about
> the
> moral
>> > >> or mental
>> > >> qualities of either
>> > >
>> > > You know, you completely blow your credibility when you suggest
> that
>> these
>> > > lyrics are not specifically black, and specifically demeaning.
> They
> are.
>> > > No one who heard them then was in any doubt. "Gwine"
> is all you need
> to
>> > > see.
>> > >
>> > While "gwine" is certainly a specifically-black reference,
> whether it
> was
>> > intended or understood as demeaning is quite another matter -- it
> was,
> in
>> > fact, a part of the actual dialect spoken by many African-Americans
> of
> the
>> > time, and in fact, it survives today in the speech of the Gullah
> speakers
>> > of the Sea Islands off South Carolina and northern Georgia. Note the
>> > examples in the American Bible Society's Gullah translation:
>> > http://juniperwebsolutions.com/gullah/bible.html
>> >
>> > There's a common perception today that much of minstrel-era
> dialect was
>> > simply made up by comedians and songwriters, but the more research
> that
> s
>> > done by sociolinguists the less likely this seems. The works of J. L.
>> > Dillard, William Labov, and Walter Brasch contain much worth reading
> on
>> > this point.
>> >
>> > Elizabeth
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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