Klarinet Archive - Posting 000105.txt from 2005/05

From: "Harvey Hyde" <hhyde@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] RE Naughty world war II song
Date: Thu, 05 May 2005 17:49:47 -0400

As a member of The Royal Canadian Navy in 1944, I remember the recording
coming out and being popular----I think that the word "Rum" was not
acceptable to some and a second version of the song came out, I can't recall
the exact words -- does this ring a bell with anyone ?
Harvey
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 10:49 AM
Subject: [kl] RE Naughty world war II song

>
> Jim Lande wrote,
> > Words by Morey Amsterdam, music by Jeri Sullavan and Paul Baron;
> > recorded by The Andrews Sisters with Vic Schoen & His Orchestra,
> > October 18, 1944.
> >
> > can be viewed at
> > http://ntl.matrix.com.br/pfilho/html/lyrics/r/rum_and_coca_cola.txt
> >
> > Well, I think it is pretty clear what this song is about.
>
> Yup. Interesting illustration of how context is everything, too. If I
> first heard "Rum and Cola Cola" today, I'd assume it was written as a
> protest song, criticizing Americans for exploiting poor people. Did
> listeners understand the song that way when the Andrews Sisters recorded
> it? That isn't a rhetorical question; I don't know the answer. I'm
pretty
> sure, though, that prostitution never occurred to my mother and that she
> had no idea of any political subtext in this song when she taught me to
> sing it in the late 1950s! I didn't "get it" then, either. The only
thing
> that bothered me about the song then (age ten or so) was the
> mispronunciation of "Coca Cola." I must've been horribly literal-minded
as
> a child. It didn't occur to me that matching the lyric with the tune in
> such a way that the singer had to sing, "CocAH CoLAH" was cute dialect or
> demeaning dialect or politically loaded dialect. I just thought it was a
> mistake!
>
> Lelia Loban
>
>
>
>
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