What the heck? It’s built into us to love that tune because we associate it with our childhood and ice cream. They could have picked anything and chose something like that. Ugh.
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lol I feel bamboozled! It is interesting because I had no idea about any of these songs and their origins. Childhood ruined.
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This thread is wild to me, because growing up when I did mostly in the 00s, none of these songs are familiar to me at all. Oh Susanna and Camptown Races were things that were alluded to, but I certainly don’t have any affection for them. And the ice cream trucks I’m familiar with were this one:
There was also this one, which played Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer, which has only very loose ties to minstrelsy, as far as I’m aware:
I think we might be at a point in history where debate about whether or not minstrel folk songs should be replaced is mostly academic.
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Well crap…I thought “Dinah” was Dinah Shore, which tells you how old I am…
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“The Entertainer” is probably OK. It’s really a Ragtime song, not a minstrel song, and was composed by a Black artist. Joplin, admittedly, did perform in minstrel shows as a Black artist, but his Ragtime songs were really done independently of that, and constituted almost a whole new genre of music that blended African-American and European styles.
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Wow, I didn’t know there were so many hidden racist origins.
Actually the picture you posted is of Mr. Softee.
A totally different tune and words.
The video you linked is NOT Softee.
Go to the other board. I posted the nice clean softee song without a past over there.
I would like to Cancel the Washington Post!
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I’m confused…why are we talking about a picture? I was highlighting the music associated, and not trying to connect the thumbnail websites used to the actual tunes. I don’t think they meant to either.
To be honest, you have probably listened to and sung minstrel songs, and told minstrel jokes all the way back to your elementary school music class days without realizing it.
How many of you remember singing the following songs in elementary school music:
a) Polly Wolly Doodle
b) The Yellow Rose of Texas (the version you sung was likely a “sanitized” version with lyrics that delete a lot of the original racist language, and replace it with something more G-rated)
c) Oh Susanna
d) Ring, Ring the Banjo
e) Sewanee River
f) Dixie
g) Camptown Races
h) Old Dan Tucker (have you heard the Bruce Springsteen version?)
i) My Old Kentucky Home (again, the version you hear at the Kentucky Derby is somewhat sanitized)
j) Shoofly Don’t Bother Me
k) Turkey in the Straw
???
If so, then you unwittingly sung a minstrel song.
How about the old joke “Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it wanted to get to the other side!!!”
Minstrel show joke.
Anyone ever seen a high stepping “cakewalk” dance?
That dance was legitimately developed by African-Americans, but was hijacked by and became a staple in minstrel shows, and was usually performed at the end of the first act.
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It’s like digging up dinosaur bones, though they were just fine where they were, its a lot more compelling to figure out how they got there. Leave it to Coogs to take a post about the boring horns and turn it into something interesting.
I’m very proud right now. 
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GREAT video on Joplin!
Scott Joplin was truly a man before his time.
Until I saw that video, I didn’t realize how much Irving Berlin was influenced by him.
Thanks!
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The way our cultures came together was not very pretty but beautiful things have come out of it.
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There is a lot of Ca Ca in this thread !!!
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A lot poo poo in our history
Huh. Didn’t know that about the Yellow Rose of Texas. I was taught that it was about a woman who…uh…netflixed and chilled with Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto, but nothing was mentioned about race. Though, apparently, that legend is probably likewise false.
So is there a country without doo doo in their past?
“So is there a country without doo doo in their past?”
Speeder gets pulled over by cop. Speeder points at others who are driving by and says to cop “but look they’re speeding, why didn’t you stop them?”
I think our minstrel past is unique. Its a history most know little about and shows the prevalence of racism in post Civil War America. The stereotypes created by the minstrels stayed with us for a long time.
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