• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

The ice cream truck jingle has racist history [Read the article before posting]

Status
Not open for further replies.
Meh, clickbait total. NPR should be better than this.

Sneds said:
I don't understand the bolded.
Click to expand...

When they say 'c'ol' they mean 'coal'.
 
I've heard almost every song in this thread at least once on an ice cream truck.

Strangest thing in this thread are people who've only heard one in their life enough to think there is "the ice cream truck song."
 
ICE CREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tumblr_mqr8mykswq1rvn2ylo1_400.gif
 
shuri said:
Well it's kind of a misleading article.

So it turns out the real origins of the songs is not racist at, it was a old popular melody; then people started adding random lyrics to it while singing it while working and then eventually this dude recorded his version with his own racist lyrics.

You can't really say that the racist version is REALLY the original one.
Click to expand...

This.

What I want to know is: when did trucks first start playing the music?

I mean, the racist version DOES have references to ice cream (which makes the assertion that it's tied to the one played today at least a LITTLE credible), but there aren't really any concrete links tying the two.
 
MIMIC said:
This.

What I want to know is: when did trucks first start playing the music?

I mean, the racist version DOES have references to ice cream (which makes the assertion that it's tied to the one played today at least a LITTLE credible), but there aren't really any concrete links tying the two.
Click to expand...

So... my childhood is still intact?
 
Damian. said:
I don't know what's more disturbing, this revelation, or the fact that I have heard the Ice Cream truck rolling through my neighborhood at 930pm.
Click to expand...
So I aint the only one hearing the ice cream truck coming down the street when it's hella late.
 
The one from my childhood played 'The Entertainer'. Good old ragtime.

I had no clue how rascist that jingle was.
 
Rebel Leader said:
So... my childhood is still intact?
Click to expand...
Yes..

I wish posters would try and read the entire thread before posting comments that have already been debunked. Or I wish gaf was more like reddit with the top rated comment being the first post so clickbait articles would be a lot less effective when the first post is almost always a detailed rebuttal.

/rant
 
Spring-Loaded said:
Whoa, is that what it was saying in the article? Or did someone here say this?
Click to expand...
Nah; someone kinda alluded to it, I'm just going with the most extreme opinions here. I'm an optimist, but I'm also an extremist.

shuri said:
Well it's kind of a misleading article.

So it turns out the real origins of the songs is not racist at, it was a old popular melody; then people started adding random lyrics to it while singing it while working and then eventually this dude recorded his version with his own racist lyrics.

You can't really say that the racist version is REALLY the original one.
Click to expand...

If this is true someone really jumped the gun on that article there.
 
The ice cream van in my neighborhood generally doesn't come around until late fall, and this last year he was playing Cypress Hill. But I would've never known the origins of this jingle and would've never equated it with racism. I knew it from Foghorn Leghorn cartoons.
 
Rebel Leader said:
So... my childhood is still intact?
Click to expand...

I don't want to say that they're WRONG, but they clearly jumped to conclusions.

A few nights ago, I started searching Google for results about when ice cream trucks started using music (and excluded all results within the last 5 years) and came to the Mister Softee jingle that was used in the 60s.

Got it from here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/52281/brief-history-ice-cream-truck

It was late at night and I only skimmed it....and I'm too lazy to read it now, lol
 
What.

Turkey in the Straw came before and the melody was popularized by Minstrel shows but it assumes how big the racist version was compared to the original one, and wrongly so.

By the 20th century we can confirm it was the dominate song. The lyrics were to reflect farm or rural settings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsnZxfkkoKQ

or made nonsensical to just enjoy the melody:
http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/04/early-sources-versions-of-song-turkey.html

And often used in Looney Tunes in farm settings with chickens and such. If it was to reflect post-slavery racism then the choice or music makes no sense.

This is just blowing up how the song got over to the states. Assuming it was the dominant song or even stayed the dominant song is a huge assumption hardly anyone questions here, strangely. The melody has had all sorts of lyrics because it's a nice melody. It's put on an ice cream truck because it's a nice melody people like. Don't let people make such stupid accusations about it.

...but all that said, I wish my ice cream truck played Greensleeves.
 
AFollowerNotALeader said:
There's an icecream truck in my neighborhood that plays "Dixie". I'm guessing that no-one here in Southeast London knows what that song is...
Click to expand...

I heard one of those recently in my neighborhood. I am in Texas, so we know what it is. The operator is Honduran, though, so it's possible he just likes the music and it was one of the default jingles on the truck.
 
MIMIC said:
This.

What I want to know is: when did trucks first start playing the music?

I mean, the racist version DOES have references to ice cream (which makes the assertion that it's tied to the one played today at least a LITTLE credible), but there aren't really any concrete links tying the two.
Click to expand...

Trucks began playing the music in the post-war years, when ice cream trucks began to replace ice cream parlors in the suburban sprawl of the '50s. The reason this melody was originally associated with ice cream is because the tune was played in pre-war ice cream parlors. The reason the tune was played in pre-war ice cream parlors is because of the association with watermelon as the black man's ice cream in the racist version of the song.

So yes, while today most people just think of that song as it blares from the ice cream truck as "Turkey in the Straw," the reason the melody is associated with ice cream and ice cream trucks has its roots in the racist version drawing a connection between watermelon and ice cream. Most of the ice cream trucks I've heard in the last ten years or so tend to play "The Entertainer," though.
 
Valhelm said:
Not exactly, no. The "ice cream truck song" shares the same melody with both Turkey in the Straw and N-gger Love a Watermelon. Those songs, in turn, are both based off the traditional Irish tune The Rose Tree. Minstrelsy was the 19th century practice of white musicians performing songs meant to mimic African American culture, usually in blackface, and almost always in a racist manner. In the 1800s, many musicians wrote their own songs on top of folk melodies, such as the Rose Tree. Unfortunately, people like Harry C. Browne chose to write songs that spread their racist agendas.

Turkey in the Straw and N-gger Love a Watermelon are based on the same tune, but neither is based on the other. The “ice cream truck song” isn't in any way racist. Its tune comes from Turkey in the Straw, which was an incredibly popular 19th century song with no real connection to N-gger Love a Watermelon.
Click to expand...
From the article:

"For his creation, Browne simply used the well-known melody of the early 19th-century song "Turkey in the Straw," which dates back to the even older and traditional British song "The (Old) Rose Tree." The tune was brought to America's colonies by Scots-Irish immigrants who settled along the Appalachian Trail and added lyrics that mirrored their new lifestyle.

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."

So yes, the jingle has a racist history, and the thread title is both accurate and appropriate.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

This article is the most perfect description of corporate work I have ever read
Business  2
61
2K
nush replied
Why is the history of the Korean War shrouded?
23
643
Wildebeest replied
do you get ice cream trucks on your street?
2
69
4K
Puscifer replied
Reminder: Can we check if it's AI before posting?
6
386
falconhoof replied
Avatar: The Last Airbender Movie leaks online months before release
News 
49
900
struggler_guts replied
Top Bottom