[HOST] For many people, chasing after the ice cream truck after hearing its now famous
jingle is a summer ritual, but would you believe that the song actually has racist origins?
DEVIN: But when I first became aware of some sort of racist origin to The Ice Cream Song
I just shook my head, and I was like, "Wow." [HOST] That’s Devin L Walker from The Uncle
Devin show - he’s a music educator who has studied the racist origins of some of the
most popular nursery rhymes today.
He spoke with us about the problematic past of the ice cream truck song and other children’s
songs that have more devious historys than we’d expect.
DEVIN: It comes out of Europe, and it was a song that actually spoke more about animals...
It was a song called 'Turkey In The Straw.'
[HOST] But in 1916, vaudeville actor Harry C. Browne borrowed the melody and published
a very different version... DEVIN: he changed the lyrics to "Nigger want
a watermelon, ha, ha, ha.”
[HOST] Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, minstrel shows featured white actors in blackface
who sang these kinds of racist songs and played racist caricatures of Black people- something
that persists to this day around the country and the world.
But in minstrel shows, music was what normalized the offensive messaging..
DEVIN: ...Anything and everything to continually display the inferiority of Africans who were
either slaves at the time, or becoming free [HOST] But how did such a vulgar song become
the theme song of the ice cream truck we know today? Well according to NPR, minstrel songs
were just common in ice cream parlors. Quote: After World War II, the advent of the automobile
and the ensuing sprawl required parlors to devise a way to take their products to customers.
Ice cream trucks were the solution, and a music box was installed in them as a way to
announce their presence in neighborhoods. Which is why almost 200 years later, the pleasant,
upbeat ice cream truck song is no longer closely associated with its dark and not so sweet
origins.
And this is far from the only racist song to come out of this era that sounds much
different today. DEVIN: But Zip-a-dee-do-dah, Zip-a-dee-day,
is a minstrel song... Over the years they've changed the lyrics, I know the 1945 Walt Disney
Music Company, the first two refrains is, "Zip-a-dee-do-dah, zip-a-dee-day…”
DEVIN: it's about Uncle Remus, who was a slave. [HOST] And even Eenie Meenie Minie Moe has
questionable origins. DEVIN: ...but used to use black children as
bait to catch alligators…Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Mo, I believe is connected to that,
in the fact that it was a song about that, and also catching slaves as they ran away.
Eenie, meenie, miney, mo, catch a nigger by its toe...
[HOST] And there are many many more.
[HOST] Devin’s goal is to create new songs for black children...that teach and inspire
without having a problematic history behind it - notably through his radio station, Weenationradio.
DEVIN: thing is trying to educate our community about the importance that this music plays.
And that's the hardest thing, because I don't care what genre of music you listen to, there
is very little music dedicated to children..
[HOST] So if there is one thing we can all scream for - it’s ice cream,
but I think we can do without the song. I’m Jacques Morel with Genius News, bringing
you the meaning and the knowledge behind the music. Peace!