For the children

August 14, 2020 11:38 AM

Ice cream trucks will be playing a new tune this summer, composed by RZA of Wu Tang Clan. Good Humor Ice Cream's web page is blessedly straightforward about the rationale: The previous jingle, used for decades, was a traditional tune probably best known these days as "Turkey in the Straw" but has an incredibly problematic past, and Good Humor's press release is unusually frank about the song's racist heritage as being the reason for the change.

Direct links to the Youtube videos of the new jingle and RZA's pitch which were embedded in the press release page.

If you want to read more about the ways "Turkey in the Straw" had gone wrong, the link above to distractify.com is a quick, censored overview. A more comprehensive report, with uncensored racist epithets and illustrations, was published on NPR's website in 2014.

posted by ardgedee (148 comments total)

I heard this yesterday. I like it! It's cute and catchy. I am not looking forward to the inevitable culture war battle over this.

I haven't seen an actual Good Humor truck in ... ever?
posted by Countess Elena at 11:46 AM on August 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

Fortunately most of New York seems to be Mister Softee territory, and they have their own song that was written expressly for their trucks and is thus free of any unpleasant connotations.

Unfortunately, it can drive you completely bonkers.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:52 AM on August 14, 2020 [16 favorites]

I believe you mean the fish truck (a fib my children believed for YEARS).
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 11:55 AM on August 14, 2020 [25 favorites]

What wasn't clear until I watched the pitch video is that anyone can use the song, not just Good Humor. I don't know what the licensing terms are.

Yeah, I live in NYC and Mr. Softee does rule the streets, but there are plenty of independent and/or knockoff trucks out there. I've heard Turkey in the Straw plenty around here, although I doubt any of those operators will want to spend the cash for a new tune. If I hear one I won't buy from it and I'll tell them why (not that I'm stepping out much these days).

That bass (which will carry farther) is going to annoy parents and draw the kids way more than the bells ever did…
posted by Ampersand692 at 11:58 AM on August 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

Awesome! Makes me want ice cream (not a hard sell, admittedly).

The Mr. Softee theme always makes me think of the string quartet Jed Distler wrote based on it.
posted by tarshish bound at 12:02 PM on August 14, 2020 [7 favorites]

I've heard Turkey in the Straw plenty around here, although I doubt any of those operators will want to spend the cash for a new tune.

Is it for sale? I thought it was free.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:02 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

The song is free, but I suspect modifying an old truck to play a new tune won't be. Not that I have any idea how those work.
posted by Ampersand692 at 12:05 PM on August 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

great news. will be happy to never hear turkey in the straw again. my child is fond of that song because it irritates me. alas, due to streisand effect (and association with ice cream) it has made it into the next generation. sorry.
posted by 20 year lurk at 12:06 PM on August 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

Ice cream trucks are weird. I live fairly close to an elementary school so one trolls my neighborhood now (I moved here 4 years ago), but my olld neighborhood on the other side of town never saw them come through. Even here, there doesn't seem to be any particular rhyme or reason as to when they show up. I've been in quarantine for months now and seem to notice the jingle randomly. I did physically see the truck while out driving a few weeks ago, but that seemed just as random. Ice cream trucks are the frozen treat version of Brigadoon.
posted by axiom at 12:09 PM on August 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

I had to go check that “The Entertainer”, ice cream truck song of my youth, wasn’t based on “Turkey in the Straw”. Nope!
posted by clew at 12:10 PM on August 14, 2020 [12 favorites]

Speaking of Mister Softee, did anyone ever figure out why their trucks were rolling around at the height of the pandemic in NYC, with their siren song echoing up and down the empty streets? It wasn't racist, but it was creepy as hell.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 12:10 PM on August 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

One missing piece of context that may have been instrumental in bringing this issue to the forefront was that unmarked NYPD vehicles, earlier this year in presumed response to BLM protests against police violence, were reported to have been repeatedly cruising a low-income neighborhood in NYC engaging in deliberately provocative behavior by playing "Turkey in the Straw" through loudspeakers at 2 am.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:11 PM on August 14, 2020 [32 favorites]

The ice cream truck that trolls my neighborhood plays a really butchered 8-bit-ified version of "The Entertainer". I'd gladly welcome any change to that!
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:12 PM on August 14, 2020 [11 favorites]

How do current ice cream trucks even play their current jingles, much less update to a new one? I'm imagining some kind of grey 1970's contraption encased in a huge box with wires coming out of it. Not something that you can upload an MP3 on repeat.
posted by meowzilla at 12:12 PM on August 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

(Well - not to "Turkey in the Straw", obviously...)
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:14 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

Huh. Ice cream truck in my neighborhood only plays Greensleeves.
posted by potrzebie at 12:20 PM on August 14, 2020 [14 favorites]

The ice cream truck that trolls my neighborhood plays a really butchered 8-bit-ified version of "The Entertainer". I'd gladly welcome any change to that!

Oh, I like "The Entertainer." And fortunately, it's a ragtime classic by Scott Joplin, so it'd be a good alternative to the people who don't want to work with RZA if they have a weird objection.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:21 PM on August 14, 2020 [5 favorites]

Changing should be really simple. There’s a box somewhere with 12V DC going in, an on/off switch, maybe a volume control and one of a few possible impedances for the pair of wires going to the speakers. You could easily build those at medium scale for well under $25. A real opportunity for a crowd funded project in fact. The tricky part is merely mechanical: how and where to mount it.

The new jungle is really great.
posted by sjswitzer at 12:22 PM on August 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

We had both Mister Softee and Good Humor trucks in my neighborhood when I was a kid. The GH trucks were a daytime thing and the MS trucks were late afternoon/evening. Thing is, I don't recall the GH truck playing music. They jingled bells.
posted by Splunge at 12:23 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

You mean "the shop that only sells individually wrapped delicious treats through a window and comes to where you live" isn't the perfect model for a pandemic? Because friend, that is the perfect model for a pandemic.
posted by phooky at 12:26 PM on August 14, 2020 [29 favorites]

Who knew Good Humor was still a thing? (I'm living a highly sheltered life in rural Vermont. No such thing up here, but maybe within the beltways they're all over the place.)
posted by beagle at 12:26 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

This is a good move. Like the tune. In my country the ice cream vans are "Mr Whippy" and they play a particularly mournful version of Greensleeves, for reasons I cannot understand. Greensleeves is not problematic in any way politically but it is a real downer. This would improve it.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:26 PM on August 14, 2020 [16 favorites]

Changing should be really simple.

As soon as I hit post I remembered the thread just up on “tech brain” and now I feel a bit, um....
posted by sjswitzer at 12:28 PM on August 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

Oh, I like "The Entertainer."

So do I, just not the mutilated version this truck plays... :(
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:29 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

It's a good jingle, but I can tell it's going to get just as obnoxious hearing it repeatedly for hours during the summer as the vans cruise around. I doubt there's much RZA or anyone else could do about that, though.
posted by biogeo at 12:32 PM on August 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Wu-Tang is for the children
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:32 PM on August 14, 2020 [40 favorites]

Oh thank GOD this isnt the Mr Softee song! The Mr Softee song is my absolute favorite memory of growing up a little kid in NYC. Even now, I hum it constantly. Very glad to hear that song is still unproblematic (other than ear-wormy).
posted by silverstatue at 12:33 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

Info about ice cream truck music boxes from The Current: The leading manufacturer of music boxes for ice cream trucks calls Minnesota home
BBC: The weird tale behind ice cream jingles
posted by Lexica at 12:33 PM on August 14, 2020 [7 favorites]

You mean "the shop that only sells individually wrapped delicious treats through a window and comes to where you live" isn't the perfect model for a pandemic? Because friend, that is the perfect model for a pandemic.

It was still in the 40s or 50s Fahrenheit here, and at times, I heard the trucks at night or when it was raining. The streets were largely devoid of people and the vast majority of the other vehicles were ambulances.

I'm guessing the boring answer is that people were rolling the trucks around now and again so the batteries wouldn't crap out, but it's equally possible that the trucks are alive and that they, like some sharks, will die if they stop moving.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 12:34 PM on August 14, 2020 [21 favorites]

Since we're comparing ice cream truck jingles - this one bugs me. Especially if it's on a loop - that woman's voice periodically breaking in to say "Hello??" especially. Apparently they were going for sounding friendly, but to me it sounds aggressive ("Hello? Wake up, are you gonna buy some ice cream or not?")
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:35 PM on August 14, 2020 [14 favorites]

It's that time of year to point out how the Mister Softee jingle has lyrics!
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:36 PM on August 14, 2020 [5 favorites]

I kind of want the bass to be tuned up a little? Does that make sense?
posted by curious nu at 12:38 PM on August 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

Yeah, the pitch video says (in a text slide in the video) that the song is free, and that it will be included in all new industry standard ice cream truck music boxes going forward. Near the bottom of the page, it's also mentioned that they will be providing education to drivers on how to update their existing music boxes.

I did a little googling on "ice cream truck music boxes." Only 2 retailers showed up on the first page. One was all mp3 based and could run off a thumb drive, so that's easy enough. The other (Nichols Electronics Co, if anyone is interested) offers two products. One plays multiple songs but doesn't list customization as a feature and specifically says there are no user serviceable parts. The other only plays one song and can be updated for a "nominal fee." Their website notes that they have stopped including Turkey in the Straw on their music boxes -- according to their Facebook page, they made the announcement in June. I get the impression that these are not just mp3 players, so it may be a little more complicated to update them, but it's obviously possible on some level.

Their website led me to the International Association of Ice Cream Distributors & Vendors. The very first thing on that page is a message from the board. Here's an excerpt:
On Tuesday, June 16, 2020, Good Humor made a public statement denouncing the use of [Turkey in the Straw] and the IAICDV fully supports Good Humor's position. The IAICDV will work with Good Humor and all of the Association's members to terminate the use of chimes that may be offensive."
posted by natabat at 12:38 PM on August 14, 2020 [22 favorites]

Mister Softee is a franchise: About 10 Mister Softee truck franchisees have gone rogue, disregarding requests from headquarters by peddling popsicles even as officials restrict business operations and tell people to stay home because of the coronavirus pandemic. (ABC NY, 4/16/20) [...] Legally, those drivers are within their rights. Food truck workers have been deemed essential by New York state, and while truck owners elsewhere in the city voted unanimously to temporarily stop selling swirls, about 10 of the roughly 80 Brooklyn-based franchisees are still operating on the near-empty streets. Mister Softee initially moved to lock down its 350 New York City-based trucks before realizing the company legally couldn't stop its drivers...
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:43 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

In Pasadena we had either the ding ding man (pushes a cart with a bicycle bell that goes ding ding ding ding ding the whole way, sometimes shouts Paletas! Paletas!) or the truck that played a medley that included La Cucaracha and Pop Goes the Weasel. Sometimes the fruit truck (fresh fruit, plus those off-brand Otter Pops from a cooler) and they just yelled and honked the horn. So it was weird to move to a place where all the ice cream trucks played the same song and everyone knew it.
posted by blnkfrnk at 12:43 PM on August 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

ardgedee: "A more comprehensive report, with uncensored racist epithets and illustrations, was published on NPR's website in 2014."

Reading the Wikipedia page on the song, there seems to be some dispute over how direct the connection described in the article is. (Personally, I always thought of it as the "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" song, which happens to use the same melody.)
posted by Rhaomi at 12:44 PM on August 14, 2020 [9 favorites]

On a more serious note: as a fiddle player from way back, I have had Turkey in the Straw in my repertoire for about 35 years now and until recently I had No Idea. Not in the repertoire any more.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:45 PM on August 14, 2020 [14 favorites]

Modify the trucks to play GWAR songs and blast jets of fake blood from pipes on the back and I will invest heavily in the enterprise.
posted by delfin at 12:46 PM on August 14, 2020 [21 favorites]

No discussion of ice cream truck music is complete without mention of the talented Philadelphia musician Doug Quattlebaum, who hooked a guitar up to his Mr. Softee truck's loudspeaker and played Piedmont blues for the clientele. Please enjoy Softee Man Blues, from 1964.
posted by Richard Saunders at 12:48 PM on August 14, 2020 [8 favorites]

This is the abomination I am subjected to over and over and over...

yes I know I'm maybe a little too peeved about this, but I really really do hate it!
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:50 PM on August 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos, I'll one up you with our local truck which plays a bastardized version of "It's a Small World", and also manages to get that woman's annoyed "Hello!?" in there (is that linked to the horn?).
posted by meinvt at 12:55 PM on August 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

The ice cream trucks that come by the parks in my area leave so quickly. The other week we were at a park and one came by. In the time it took me to get my wallet and confirm that the other adults I was with had a handle on things the truck had gone. Luckily it came back a couple of hours later so I was able to get ice cream for everyone then.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:56 PM on August 14, 2020

I think I heard this just a couple of days ago.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:57 PM on August 14, 2020

wu tang is for the children!
posted by dismas at 1:02 PM on August 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

My dad used to tease us that if the Ice Cream Truck was playing music, that meant he was OUT of ice cream for the day. I believed that one for waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long.
posted by pjsky at 1:06 PM on August 14, 2020 [16 favorites]

I like the new jingle but does it make anyone else feel like they're at the denouement of an emotionally complicated movie heading for a bittersweet confrontation with a former ally? I guess that's kinda how my relationship with ice cream is going at the moment tbh...
posted by taquito sunrise at 1:10 PM on August 14, 2020

Q: Is there a rap song that uses the Mister Softee jingle?

A: Hell yes.
posted by gauche at 1:12 PM on August 14, 2020 [8 favorites]

I grew up in Mr. Frosty territory. But, this has caused me to switch sides.
posted by eotvos at 1:13 PM on August 14, 2020

My dad used to tease us that if the Ice Cream Truck was playing music, that meant he was OUT of ice cream for the day. I believed that one for waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long.

For like the first three years of my daughter's life, I had her convinced that people just drove "music trucks" around to spread joy through the neighborhood.
posted by gauche at 1:14 PM on August 14, 2020 [5 favorites]

Am I the only one who is disappointed they didn't use Flying Birds?
posted by Catblack at 1:18 PM on August 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

Waiting to hear that Trump has signed an EO to overturn this.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:18 PM on August 14, 2020 [12 favorites]

Man, do I envy you folks who still have name-brand ice cream trucks in your streets. Here in Indy, I grew up with Mr. Softee, but they disappeared long before I hit high school. After that, “the ice cream man” devolved to ever-sketchier independent vans.

The skeevy van that now prowls my neighborhood would be perfect for an SVU episode with “help me find my puppy” spray painted on the side. My two-year-old granddaughter won’t go near it, which kind of breaks grandpa’s heart just a little.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:20 PM on August 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

When the ice cream man came down our street, I used to tell my younger daughter "hey, that's where you get ice cream!" and then we'd go to the street and I'd buy us ice cream and then we'd eat the ice cream. She's 10 year old now, and she still believes it!
posted by sideshow at 1:23 PM on August 14, 2020 [18 favorites]

Waiting to hear that Trump has signed an EO to overturn this

And the surge of angry hot-takes about how this is "erasing history."
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 1:27 PM on August 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

> Reading the Wikipedia page on the song, there seems to be some dispute over how direct the connection described in the article is.

I read the New Republic link before posting, and briefly considered including it, but really it's an opinion piece whose premise is, "even though the melody was used for racist songs, it isn't any more, and anyway the song isn't racist to me." Which isn't much of an argument -- how the song is received by the author has little to do with how it is received by other African-Americans -- and for that matter the song is, in the present day, being weaponized with overtly racist intentions.
posted by ardgedee at 1:28 PM on August 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

Also looking forward to the YouTube videos of people in confederate flag/MAGA gear shooting ice cream sandwiches with assault rifles.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 1:30 PM on August 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

Thank you, clew, I also instantly was afraid for The Entertainer. Which I love, Greg_Ace’s version and all.
posted by Night_owl at 1:35 PM on August 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

It's a shame ODB didn't live long enough to compose his own jingle. If I heard his voice coming from an ice cream truck, I'd shimmy over for a cone.
posted by Beardman at 1:46 PM on August 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

I had a dream once about an ice cream truck that played "Theme from Flood" on loop.


yes I know I'm maybe a little too peeved about this, but I really really do hate it!

Hmm, I'm kind of into it. But I want to hear a proper chiptune version with LFSR noise drums and a triangle wave bass.
posted by Foosnark at 1:47 PM on August 14, 2020 [5 favorites]

The only ice cream truck I’ve ever seen was in England and didn’t play any music at all.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:47 PM on August 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm pleased to hear the new tune has a second part and loops smoothly. Some of the trucks in Philadelphia play Fur Elise cut off in the middle.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:49 PM on August 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Ice C.R.E.A.M. trucks, surely?
posted by kickingtheground at 1:50 PM on August 14, 2020 [22 favorites]

ODB never did a song about ice cream, but Raekwon (w/RZA producing) kinda did. The central metaphor is not ice-cream-truck-appropriate, but RZA could've worked in some of the melody, like LL shouting out FUBU in that Gap commercial freestyle.
posted by box at 1:52 PM on August 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

The "Hello?" jingle is just the worst. It's the delivery of "Hello?" that really means "Hey, dumbass!"
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:52 PM on August 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

Saw this news earlier today. As a long time New Yorker I've learned to loathe the sound of the ice cream truck. So this is good news.
posted by Liquidwolf at 1:53 PM on August 14, 2020

I played the violin as a kid, in a performing group. Turkey in the Straw is one of about two dozen songs that I could play from memory right now without even thinking about it.

Which is to say that: it's particularly unfortunate to find out that it's super racist, because now it's playing on endless loop in my head right now and aaaaaaaargh!
posted by gurple at 1:55 PM on August 14, 2020

The truck in my neighborhood plays a medley of Christmas songs, Musicbox Dancer, and something that is almost, but not quite, Pop Goes the Weasel. The drivers must be made of sterner stuff than me because I would fall apart after a couple of hours of that loop.
posted by corey flood at 2:05 PM on August 14, 2020 [5 favorites]

Neat little blurb on the main page of Nichols Electronics Company who makes electronic music boxes for ice cream trucks:

Nichols Electronics will no longer sell music boxes nor program music boxes with the song: Turkey in the Straw. Please see our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/NicholsElectronicsCo/ for further information.
posted by c0nsumer at 2:05 PM on August 14, 2020 [5 favorites]

Can't they all just play "Black Cow"?

The new jungle is really great.
Welcome to the jingle
posted by thelonius at 2:12 PM on August 14, 2020 [10 favorites]

When I drove a Good Humor truck in the early 70's the tune was that (I thought) iconic one that starts on the 3rd and goes down like 3-3-2-2-1-(down)3-(down)5-1 etc, but I can't find hide nor hair of it online. Anybody old out there know that one?

#toolazytoAskMeFi
posted by tspae at 2:23 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

I'm sure that Disney, who presumably have something to say about it, would never allow it as something that I'm sure conflicts with their Grand Cross-Platform Universal Branding Strategic Initiative, but all of a sudden I really want to know how much it would cost to buy an ice cream truck and license the Imperial March / Darth Vader Theme..
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:26 PM on August 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

I live in the middle of nowhere and every afternoon while walking Mr. Dog an old post office jeep, converted to an ice cream vendor, drives past. They are courteous enough to turn off their music as they approach. Every time they pass I try to do the "could it possibly be profitable to drive that thing out here?" math, and never come to a satisfying answer. I mean, the median age out here is 143. Not that centurions cannot enjoy ice cream.

It's supposed to be a scorcher on Sunday. Maybe they have a treat I can share with Mr. Dog, biggest issue is I only really covet chocolate, which he cannot have.

This truck, BTW, plays a medley of stuff, including green sleeves. I want to hear 8 bit Rhianna.
posted by maxwelton at 2:30 PM on August 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

When I was a kid there was an off-brand local ice-cream truck that apparently lots its music box jingle one summer so it just would roll slowly up and down the streets of the neighborhood playing Herb Alpert's "Spanish Flea."

Memories!
posted by thivaia at 2:31 PM on August 14, 2020 [7 favorites]

I'm guessing the boring answer is that people were rolling the trucks around now and again so the batteries wouldn't crap out, but it's equally possible that the trucks are alive and that they, like some sharks, will die if they stop moving.

That is absolutely the beginning of a horror movie.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 2:32 PM on August 14, 2020 [7 favorites]

Which is to say that: it's particularly unfortunate to find out that it's super racist, because now it's playing on endless loop in my head right now and aaaaaaaargh!

Oh man, me too. Only it's "Wakko's America," which I barely even know.

I had never heard of the racist version of "Turkey in the Straw"; I learned of it as something people square-danced to, especially as kids in school, which it turns out is also cursed racist, in inception if not in practice.

I have early memories of my grandmother, when I was little and she had heart and energy, sitting at her upright piano and singing me "Oh, Susannah" and "Someone's In the Kitchen with Dinah," which I now know are minstrel songs. I doubt she knew it. It's bittersweet and strange.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:33 PM on August 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

It will be very sad if square dancing is permanently stolen by Ford, etc., because it is a mostly black and definitely working class adaptation of (eg) the quadrille. Vivian Williams has receipts, iirc.
posted by clew at 2:37 PM on August 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

Also looking forward to the YouTube videos of people in confederate flag/MAGA gear shooting ice cream sandwiches with assault rifles.

Could we, perhaps, have assault rifles that shoot ice cream sandwiches at people in MAGA hats instead?
posted by Horkus at 2:45 PM on August 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

Not that centurions cannot enjoy ice cream.

Per Mithrae magnum bonum est glacies crepito!
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:49 PM on August 14, 2020 [8 favorites]

If anyone passing by here can recall what tunes the vans used to play in Greater Manchester in the late 80s I would be materially grateful. Not Greensleeves or the Entertainer. Am now desssparate to remember!
posted by runincircles at 2:50 PM on August 14, 2020

All the ones here in Seattle seem to play "A Bicycle Built for Two"
posted by Windopaene at 2:51 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

thelonius: Welcome to the jingle

We've got Wu Tang Clan
If you want ice cream sandwiches
You'll have to catch the van
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:59 PM on August 14, 2020 [17 favorites]

I am irreligious myself, but I unironically greatly appreciate Woke Capital.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 3:28 PM on August 14, 2020

My local truck (in London) plays "O Sole Mio" presumably because of the Cornetto advert from back in the day.

It's interesting how RZA's tune works for its context. It doesn't have a real beginning because it's intended to fade in as the truck approaches. It's fitter for that purpose than any folk tune.

Also I had never before considered the idea of an ice cream truck franchise, in the sense of a recognizable brand identity. Does there exist an organisation in the UK that could promote a new ice cream tune?
posted by doiheartwentyone at 3:46 PM on August 14, 2020

The truck in my neighborhood plays a medley of Christmas songs
Unless you live in upper NW DC, there are more than one of these.

I prefer it to both any other versions of these songs, and traditional ice cream truck music. I can't eat anything they sell, but if I could, I'd be there every day.
posted by aspersioncast at 3:46 PM on August 14, 2020

I haven't seen an actual Good Humor truck in ... ever?

From the first link:

Good Humor has not owned ice cream trucks since the 1970s, nor did we create “Turkey in the Straw” or any other jingles. However, as a leader in the industry, and the creator of the original ice cream truck, we want to be part of the solution on this issue, particularly since we work closely with so many ice cream truck drivers across the country.

posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:03 PM on August 14, 2020 [5 favorites]

I am irreligious myself, but I unironically greatly appreciate Woke Capital.

People will point out that this is brand activism, but it's worth noting that it's brand activism done right. Good Humor has been open and blunt about why Turkey in the Straw is problematic, and has been using their clout to push for change not just by making a new jingle, but by also getting the industry to agree to remove the song (which they have.) it seems that the sentiment here is "ice cream should make everyone happy," which is something I can support.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:04 PM on August 14, 2020 [10 favorites]

This post sent me on a little journey. Here in Denver, the trucks play Red Wing. I've always basically liked it. After finding what it was, I then sought out a full rendition. It's a classic folk song like Wildwood Flower, until the lyrics start. It's about a young Indian maid waiting for her brave to return home, but he's not because he's died in battle. Which is really ironic because of the Sand Creek Massacre (and others) memorialized by the now destroyed Civil War monument formerly standing in front of our state capitol. Of all the songs to pick, why this one? In Denver? Why?

Sometimes waking up kinda sucks.

Go RZA!
posted by Carmody'sPrize at 4:06 PM on August 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Growing up in Rockaway Beach, NYC, in the 1970s, we called every ice cream truck “The Good Humor Man”.

Mr Softee was the afternoon, “unwrapped ice cream” truck. Didn’t fuck with that as a kid.

Also... if I ever own an ice cream truck, imma play this as my jingle.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 4:11 PM on August 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

"Every day is for ice cream,
silver shamrock."
posted by clavdivs at 4:20 PM on August 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

I once knew a guy who ran his own ice cream truck. He also worked for a dairy and would frequently buy or, you know, take, their ice-cream products that were about to expire and then he'd go park at music festivals, outdoor venues catering to adults and play Tom Waits' "The Ice Cream Man" and other songs that seemed to amuse him. I'm pretty sure he didn't sell drugs out of the van but also pretty sure he would trade weed/shrooms for ice-cream. We'd raid his freezer when we got the munchies.

I like the collective action during this time to fix the little things that have been broken or ignored for so long. It's like we are all, hm, this door has been squeaky for years, let's fix it. And prop up that fence that blew over and pull out this rotten carpet and shine up the hardwoods. It's one of the bright spots.
posted by amanda at 4:32 PM on August 14, 2020 [16 favorites]

It's a shame ODB didn't live long enough to compose his own jingle. If I heard his voice coming from an ice cream truck, I'd shimmy over for a cone.

Just put the piano loop from Shimmy Shimmy Ya in ice cream trucks, problem solved!
posted by Ghidorah at 4:48 PM on August 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

Sure, let's reinforce the idea post hoc appropriation of an icon merits erasure of the pre hoc icon. That's sure to keep working just fine. Don't complain when it happens to you, avoid hypocrisy when your icon gets appropriated and made null and void.

It's perilous to let a later appropriation of an icon remove a thing unless you're willing to have the same done to your icons. This hurrah is the same thing that turned the O.K. hand sign into some white-power thing, the same that turned red/blue bandanas into gang affiliation and close cut hair into nazi skin heads... Sure, go on and applaud. Let them know that all they have to do to take things away is write some lyrics to a tune or otherwise appropriate something to their ends and you'll happily erase every last bit of it.

Seriously my vitriol comes from living in Topeka Kansas in the mid 90's. The home town of Fred Phelps (the God Hates Fags people), the most racist/homophobic place I've ever been. It was different times and the LGBTQ+/BIPOC lefty folk that I hung around were fierce in a way that makes me a bit ashamed that today people are so willing to just give up things when someone tries to take them away. Y'all are weak and cheering that the bad guys took away a fiddle-tune without any effort because once upon a time somebody wrote some problematic lyrics to the tune.

Just consider for a moment that every time something like this happens... you're reinforcing them that they have a sure fire way to pick you apart piece by piece with little effort and no downside.
posted by zengargoyle at 4:48 PM on August 14, 2020 [9 favorites]

Also I had never before considered the idea of an ice cream truck franchise, in the sense of a recognizable brand identity. Does there exist an organisation in the UK that could promote a new ice cream tune?

I only saw a few ice cream trucks in London, but they all had “Mr. Whippy” written on the side.

I mostly remember “Turkey in the Straw” from beginner instrument method books, and from Sharon, Lois, and Bram.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:56 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

Sure, let's reinforce the idea post hoc appropriation of an icon merits erasure of the pre hoc icon. That's sure to keep working just fine. Don't complain when it happens to you, avoid hypocrisy when your icon gets appropriated and made null and void.

Dunno, given your past examples, they've been just fine living in that ambiguity of "we have this signifier, but nobody wants to really press it meaning what we know it means" for years. You're not denying them a victory or a tool to use just because they get to seig heil on CNN while everybody else goes "I don't know, maybe they meant the other thing? We can't tell in their hearts that they were racist, it's not like they had a hood on..."

If there's anything that's been learned over the last few years, it's that deplatforming works. That addressing their coy culture games works. And "don't feed the trolls", "ignore them and they'll go away"? Turns out that advice was written by some trolls who were very invested in telling everybody the way they prefer to be responded to, and who have been *very* keen on steering people away from the more effective responses.

I don't know why we have to keep having the same conversation repeatedly in black-box mode where we have to guess at the goals and motivations. It's not like channers are coming up with their sooper sekrit plots in hidden channels. Refusing to use what tools we have access to just lets them run roughshod over everything.
posted by CrystalDave at 5:08 PM on August 14, 2020 [10 favorites]

"bad guys took away a fiddle-tune without any effort "

REALLY? The fiddle tune is no icon to me, just some mildly annoying mental wallpaper. I'm just excited to have a RZA tune take its place. The "squeaky door" analogy above is apt: it's only an "icon" to the extent that you're attached to the old for the sake of the old.
posted by kaibutsu at 5:09 PM on August 14, 2020 [10 favorites]

Modify the trucks to play GWAR songs and blast jets of fake blood from pipes on the back and I will invest heavily in the enterprise.

How do you feel about a road trip to Minneapolis?
posted by Candleman at 5:40 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

Modify the trucks to play GWAR songs and blast jets of fake blood from pipes on the back and I will invest heavily in the enterprise.

I really miss Buick.
posted by clavdivs at 5:51 PM on August 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

Oddly, despite having had ice cream trucks roaming almost every neighborhood I've lived in my entire life, I don't remember hearing any of them play the Turkey in the Straw jingle. Here in Miami, it's been The Entertainer since I moved here. In Tulsa, the ice cream truck played three different songs on rotation.

I do recognize the tune, but only as an entirely different song involving large mammaries being carried in the way one might carry a rifle when marching in formation, among other feats of impressive flexibility.
posted by wierdo at 6:00 PM on August 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Don't complain when it happens to you, avoid hypocrisy when your icon gets appropriated and made null and void.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
posted by clavdivs at 6:06 PM on August 14, 2020

Sure, let's reinforce the idea post hoc appropriation of an icon merits erasure of the pre hoc icon. That's sure to keep working just fine. Don't complain when it happens to you, avoid hypocrisy when your icon gets appropriated and made null and void.

What does any of this even mean?
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 6:38 PM on August 14, 2020 [8 favorites]

For some reason almost all the music trucks around here use a simplified version of Music Box Dancer.
posted by tclark at 6:38 PM on August 14, 2020

Just consider for a moment that every time something like this happens... you're reinforcing them that they have a sure fire way to pick you apart piece by piece with little effort and no downside.

Dude, like... what exactly would you suggest as a real-world solution? Are we supposed to go punch fascists in the streets until the history of minstrel shows is someone changed and it never happened?

I’m truly interested to hear what you would suggest people do, They-who-art-more-revolutionary-than-the-sheep. What specific path of resistance would you suggest on behalf of some obscure fiddle song? Oh, the indignity of being stripped of the “OK” sign which hasn’t been used on dry lang outside of a sitcom since the late 80s.

Some people just want to sneer down their nose at those who aren’t as hardcore.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 6:51 PM on August 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

they've been just fine living in that ambiguity of "we have this signifier, but nobody wants to really press it meaning what we know it means" for years. You're not denying them a victory or a tool to use just because they get to seig heil on CNN while everybody else goes "I don't know, maybe they meant the other thing? We can't tell in their hearts that they were racist, it's not like they had a hood on..."

That's just the thing. The took nothing and turned it into an inside thing, you found out about it and decided to erase it. That's exactly giving them a victory that they may not have even been aiming for in the first place. Keep doing that often enough and they're bound to pick up on it and start targeting their appropriations knowing that they're easy wins because the slightest sign that something is being used by them now qualifies as a reason to drop it out of use regardless of it's non-them bit. Just them using it is enough. And it keeps happening over and over. Really, how many people of the whole wide world thought the O.K. hand-sign was racist? Was there a "OMG that's racist" reaction when the fact that they were using it came to light? Was there outrage? Would you give a side-eye to someone answering O.K. with a hand-sign? Do you have to think about it now? They won when they probably didn't even try. It was handed over.

Things move faster now than they did in the past (blame the internet and social media) but the concept isn't new. Take something innocuous and use it as in-group signal, when it's discovered ... pick another innocuous signal. That we currently take a nuke-from-space approach to this in-group appropriation it's become ripe for weaponization.

Now... due to this... many people who had not preconceived connotations attached to this tune will think "white power" whenever they hear it in a cartoon or concert when there was no actual racist intention in the first place and complete innocence at the time but now... now it's a racist thing that happened after the fact or without the knowledge of the performer involved. But they won something. They turned some tune that really does sound like a turkey and is quite catchy and jump around danceable into "OMG that's racist" and it was easy.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:51 PM on August 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Sure, let's reinforce the idea post hoc appropriation of an icon merits erasure of the pre hoc icon. That's sure to keep working just fine. Don't complain when it happens to you, avoid hypocrisy when your icon gets appropriated and made null and void.

Have you never heard that tune in a Looney Tunes cartoon or anything similar? It's a very common tune with a long history (see the Wikipedia entry) that had as far as I can tell zero racist overtones and probably not even any words at all to start with. Or at least there are dozens of lyrics to the tune and it fits into common dance steps and is something you'd hear coming from somebody's back porch learning to play the banjo. It's a tune with no baggage.

It's old, at some point, some people wrote nasty lyrics to the tune.

People have now learned that once-upon-a-time there were some bad lyrics set to the tune.

Therefore... Yay! let's applaud some ice cream company for not using that tune anymore because there are some versions of lyrics to the tune that are bad. Ignore the versions of the lyrics that are non-problematic, or that there probably weren't lyrics to start with. There was at least one bad set of lyrics so it's O.K. (well not O.K. because that's evidently a white-power thing now as well) so "all good" to just take a tune as racist and be happy that it's gone because once-upon-a-time somebody wrote some bad lyrics to the tune that few people actually even knew about, much less that there were even lyrics to the tune in the first place.

Anything could be turned into a racist in-group signifier. It's a bad strategy to give them the power to make anything they choose racist just because they decide to use it. It's giving the enemy a free pass to erode away anything of yours just by claiming it as their own. I' m against letting them do that. My hill, maybe not yours.
posted by zengargoyle at 7:05 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

So, back to the new, non-racist jingle.

I fucking love the bass. It kinda acts as the drum providing a rhythm as well. The old jingles (racist as well as non) were all generally high pitch tones without any low end. I assume that’s so the sound carries farther, but I am an old fart with old fart ears.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 7:12 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

Anything could be turned into a racist in-group signifier. It's a bad strategy to give them the power to make anything they choose racist just because they decide to use it. It's giving the enemy a free pass to erode away anything of yours just by claiming it as their own. I' m against letting them do that. My hill, maybe not yours.

Alternatively....you could see this as the rest of the world's attempt to quarantine the song until the racist association with the song is forgotten.

Also, this is only about ice cream trucks choosing a different song to play while they sell push-pops and ice cream sandwiches to kids anyway. If you don't drive an ice cream truck you can still listen to whatever the fuck you want.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:17 PM on August 14, 2020 [14 favorites]

I cannot *wait* to see the yokels who consider Turkey in the Straw part of their sacred heritage. If it’s offensive to some do away with it, it’s not someone’s grandfather’s grave, get rid of it. I love this story even though the viral marketing angle had to be part of it from the beginning.

The ice cream truck I drive plays Holy Diver, that’s something we can all enjoy. All the kids come running for their pentagram chocolate dipped bars.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:55 PM on August 14, 2020 [8 favorites]

This post sent me on a little journey. Here in Denver, the trucks play Red Wing . I've always basically liked it. After finding what it was, I then sought out a full rendition. It's a classic folk song like Wildwood Flower, until the lyrics start. It's about a young Indian maid waiting for her brave to return home, but he's not because he's died in battle.

Woody Guthrie wrote another set of lyrics for "Red Wing," calling it "Union Maid":

There once was a union maid, she never was afraid
Of goons and ginks and company finks and the deputy sheriffs who made the raid.
She went to the union hall when a meeting it was called,
And when the Legion boys come 'round
She always stood her ground.

Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union,
I'm sticking to the union, I'm sticking to the union.
Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union,
I'm sticking to the union 'til the day I die.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:07 PM on August 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

Slarty Bartfast's truck is how we'll know for the first time whether we're evil or divine.
posted by cgc373 at 8:07 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

The ice cream truck I drive plays Holy Diver, that’s something we can all enjoy. All the kids come running for their pentagram chocolate dipped bars.

"Rainbow in the Dark" would be an excellent ice cream flavour name, tbh.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:08 PM on August 14, 2020 [6 favorites]

In the 70s, when I was very small the ice cream truck played "Band Played On" The only reason I know that now is because my granny used to sing the chorus. Then we got "The Entertainer" - music box style, not chip-tune. I think there may have been a couple years in there of "Turkey in the Straw" too.

The current ice cream truck here in Oakland plays a HELLO!! creep-voice tune, but not the one cited above. Though the other week a rogue truck came by playing "Für Elise". I would actually buy ice cream from the ice cream truck if they upgraded to RZA's tune.
posted by oneirodynia at 8:18 PM on August 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Screw quarantine, closer to my gist would be writing lyrics making fun of racist and making it the new marching song for BLM. I'm not against the principals, I just think it's a poor strategy to cave into something that only means things to the opposing parties while being meaningless to the rest of the world. It makes the caving in side look like the problem by fighting against mostly nothing just because the other side has staked a new claim. Nuke from orbit is rarely a good choice when there are uninformed combatants and the thing being fought over is of no consequence outside of the combatants. Makes the winning side that gets something taken away into snowflakes and the actual losers for being the ones imposing their will on the world for their worthless gain.

A better strategy IMNSHO is to take everything that they try to take back and turn it against them. Use Tik-Tok/Twitter/FB/Whatever and turn the Turkey whatnot into a mockery of racist nazi shitheads. Use it in the next BLM march, shove it back down their throats and refuse their appropriation. Keep your ire for the truely worthy of ire things and refuse the appropriation attempts.

Not against the fight, I just think it's the wrong approach. I prefer the reverse subversive over the frontal assault. Winning everybody else is more important than head-to-head with the enemy. But that's just me.

I only know of Ice Cream Man from Eddie Murphy, at best recently I have once seen a street vendor card with a bell rolling around but they may have been just loading into a truck to travel somewhere they could sell their ice things.
posted by zengargoyle at 8:20 PM on August 14, 2020

The ice cream truck I drive plays Holy Diver, that’s something we can all enjoy.

Steven Wright had a joke that "the ice cream truck in my neighborhood plays 'Helter Skelter'."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:21 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

It's a very common tune with a long history (see the Wikipedia entry) that had as far as I can tell zero racist overtones and probably not even any words at all to start with. Or at least there are dozens of lyrics to the tune and it fits into common dance steps and is something you'd hear coming from somebody's back porch learning to play the banjo. It's a tune with no baggage.

Actually, it was a fixture of blackface minstrelsy acts for a long, long time. It appears that "Turkey in the Straw" as a naming convention for it came later.

It's got enough baggage to fill the claims area at LAX.

Speaking as someone who knows how to play the tune but chooses not to for that reason, I don't feel like I've lost anything by not doing so.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:40 PM on August 14, 2020 [16 favorites]

It's a very common tune with a long history (see the Wikipedia entry) that had as far as I can tell zero racist overtones and probably not even any words at all to start with.

That link from mandolin conspiracy: look at this sheet music cover -- for the version with the not racist lyrics -- and see if those racist overtones still add up to zero. Not to mention that the racist version is 30 years older.

But in any case, it's so unfortunate there only 32 different songs in the world, so we really need to dig in and fight to keep each one even if their history turns out to be crazy racist and their main use in contemporary culture is as a fuckin' ice cream jingle.
posted by Superilla at 8:58 PM on August 14, 2020 [11 favorites]

All the kids come running for their pentagram chocolate dipped bars.

Ooh, Pentagram Chocolate is my favorite brand! ("It's devilishly good! Chocolate tasty enough to sell your soul for!")

I know the satanist angle isn't accurate, but for the sake of the joke I don't care
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:59 PM on August 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

I learned to put my neon roller blades on SO FUCKING FAST because that's how I would chase down the ice cream man. We didnt have corporate ones, they were mostly converted mail jeeps and astro vans. They also had both kinds of candy cigarettes, the chewing gum ones that blew "smoke" and the solidified sugar ones. It was also my source of Mexican candy which my parents had banned because of a news story about lead maybe being in one candy once.
posted by nestor_makhno at 10:07 PM on August 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

The ice cream vans of my childhood in Scotland all played “Boys and Girls Come Out to Play”, blasted from a Microminiatures chime box through a tinny Grampian Horn.

And yes, I was taught the racist words to that song in school.
posted by scruss at 10:32 PM on August 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

I've been pretty cynical about on-brand anti-racism, but... at some point this starts to matter, doesn't it? The normalization that yeah, shit, this history is real.
posted by away for regrooving at 2:18 AM on August 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

My neighbourhood has something I’d never heard of before - an ice cream boat! There’s a little harbour beach one street over from my house. I moved into my new home in the middle of summer and walked down to the beach for the first time.

There I am lying in the sun on the sand watching the waves when out of nowhere a speed boat turned up - an ice cream speedboat no less, playing music and everything. On the boat was this bronzed god with a six pack handing out ice cream, fruit and drinks. As I gave him my money I remember thinking I lived in the best place on earth. I mean, where else do you get this? Ten years later and that boat still turns up through summer and now it’s the highlight of my children’s day too.
posted by Jubey at 2:24 AM on August 15, 2020 [5 favorites]

This is progress I can get behind.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 6:22 AM on August 15, 2020 [6 favorites]

If cops are playing this music in some creepy weirdo way then, c’mon, you know it’s racist. If the dogs can hear the whistle....
posted by amanda at 7:26 AM on August 15, 2020 [6 favorites]

I would just like to add to the record here. In the PRC, all of the water trucks that do street cleaning play a shitty midi tune version of "It's a Small World". I have been to multiple cities here, it is true, believe this. It's a clean street, after all. It's a clean street, after all. It's a clean street, after all. It's a clean, clean street.
posted by Meatbomb at 7:57 AM on August 15, 2020 [3 favorites]

Chocolate Penragram Ice Cream Bars: When Hell Freezes Over
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:08 AM on August 15, 2020 [4 favorites]

They also had both kinds of candy cigarettes, the chewing gum ones that blew "smoke" and the solidified sugar ones.

Yes! I was a big fan of the chewing gum ones, even though you only got maybe two and a half puffs and the gum was not very good. I never did take up actual cigarettes.
posted by oneirodynia at 11:25 AM on August 15, 2020 [3 favorites]

First off: what a thread!

Second, surprised to find no mention of Bungalow Bar, a Good Humor competitor from the NYC area when I was growing up. I cannot recall their official 'song' but like many, recall what we sang as kids:


Bungalow Bar
Tastes like tar
The more you eat
The sicker you are


(There are several variations but this is the one we sang in our neighborhood.)

Finally, my local Good Humor truck seemed to only have a set of bells to announce its impending arrival. And I recall being allowed by our local driver to ring them, along with the other kids.

Shit, and now I need me a Strawberry Shortcake, straight of the truck and tooth-cracking hard!
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 3:32 PM on August 15, 2020 [5 favorites]

Came here for the Halloween III reference and was not disappointed.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:37 PM on August 15, 2020

Prior to the unearthing of its minstrel history, I bet no one would have actively had these connotations upon hearing the song. Whenever I hear it, this is what I think of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvhw9BSURGg

I actually like the tune, always have, and don't care that at some point in its history it had racist lyrics attached to it. (John McWhorter's take, linked above, is spot-on.) I have no doubt that many songs from the turn of the twentieth century were played actively in minstrel shows; I don't particularly care as long as the lyrics (if any) aren't actually racist.

This whole story seems like manufactured outrage.
posted by bbrown at 2:42 AM on August 16, 2020

This whole story seems like manufactured outrage.

The only people in this entire thread who seem "outraged" are two people,who seem weirdly attached to one single specific usage of a song that has had bad baggage. Everyone else is talking about ice cream and all,the other songs trucks play.

You may want to examine the fervor with which you're holding on to the use of that song by ice cream trucks. The rest of us will be focusing on ice cream.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:07 AM on August 16, 2020 [9 favorites]

My grandfather was an Italian immigrant to Scotland. We still have the bugle he blew when selling gelato from his ice cream cart (bicycle with freezer cart).

As for RZAs tune - I love it. I hope they bring it to Toronto.
posted by biggreenplant at 6:05 AM on August 16, 2020 [4 favorites]

biggreenplant - I grew up in Scottish Italian café ice cream. I wish I could get it in Toronto.
posted by scruss at 8:46 AM on August 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

A worthy B Side to Pusha T's "I'm Lovin' It."
posted by Ragged Richard at 10:59 AM on August 16, 2020

You may want to examine the fervor with which you're holding on to the use of that song by ice cream trucks.

Fervor? i shared my connotation for the song. I don't care one whit what ice cream trucks play, what Good Humor spends its money on, or if anyone in this thread will no longer play the tune.

It does bother me when people dig into the ways things were in the past, find out that there was an obscure, long-dead association, and then argue for changes to that thing because of their newfound, ginned-up offense. If I still enjoy that thing then people can easily attribute my affinity for it to that association, which I may not even know about at the time.

Like I guarantee that few people living would've heard Turkey in the Straw prior to the NPR thing and wistfully or seethingly thought of the minstrel shows. Now you can hear it and worry about whether it's a white supremacist announcing its arrival in your neighborhood.

I can give you an example that might resonate with the leftist bent of MeFi, but I'll only do it on request since everyone here (assuming EmpressCallipygos speaks with authority for all here) really just wants to talk about ice cream.

(As a side note, it's a repulsive Kafka trap to suggest that discussing this is evidence of some guilt. Nice try.)
posted by bbrown at 1:47 PM on August 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

So what is the new melody for the 50 States Song?
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:21 PM on August 16, 2020

Oh the other association I have was dutifully entering the BASIC binary data into my Atari 1200XL as a kid since it was mercifully short.
posted by bbrown at 2:21 PM on August 16, 2020

I too vote for more ice cream, less crotchtety old whinging and moaning about how society isn’t allowed re-evaluate the past, isn’t allowed to come to new uderstandings of history and culture, and boo-hoo, I hate these woke kids and their evolving notions of what the past means.

That’s a tedious grind and nobody really fucking cares.

“People are going to think me racist because I love Turkey in the Straw sooooooooo much”..... methinnk the mefite doth protest too much.

Ice cream and Wu-Tang, that’s cool and fun. Picking an insincere fight over a non-issue is such a drag.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 2:35 PM on August 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

Picking an insincere fight over a non-issue is such a drag.

We can agree on that. Probably not in the same way, though.

methinnk the mefite doth protest too much.

Classic bullying tactic. Every time I leave a comment, it's like I'm in a Robin DiAngelo seminar. Everyone knows my backstory, knows my motivation, and tries to cow me.
posted by bbrown at 3:02 PM on August 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Oh for the love of...

Can we please try a little harder to extend the presumption of good faith on the part of other commenters? Dismissing other people's views as "manufactured outrage" or "insincere" really isn't helpful. No matter what you might think, it's actually entirely possible for some people to be genuinely bothered by historical associations between Turkey in the Straw and racist minstrel shows -- especially at this particular moment in history -- and for other people to be genuinely concerned that racists have too much power to claim and ruin otherwise-innocuous cultural icons simply by associating themselves and their messages with them. And these are both actually pretty reasonable viewpoints that are valuable to express. They don't even necessarily have to be diametrically opposed. Just take a moment and read what people are actually saying instead of making up your own version of their position to argue with. Please.

For myself, as someone who appreciates Old-Time music and plays the mandolin, yeah, Turkey in the Straw is a nice old tune, for which I'd never heard of any associations with racist minstrel shows before, and if someone were to play it in an Old-Time jam or at a concert or something, I wouldn't think twice about it. But that's totally context-dependent, and an ice cream truck driving around a city doesn't have that context, and I can see how other people who don't share the same associations I do would be really bothered by it. And people shouldn't be bothered by that sort of thing in their neighborhoods, so yeah, I'm glad there's a push to retire that song from use with ice cream trucks. It's just an ice cream truck song, after all, it's not like Old-Time music is now officially Cancelled. And frankly if Old-Time musicians are thinking twice about playing that particular song right now, well, that's fine too, it's not like there aren't plenty of other tunes. Songs go in and out of fashion for all kinds of reasons, and some day hopefully we'll be in a better place as a society and people will just be able to enjoy a nice old tune that long predates racist minstrel shows and lyrics without having to think about the later nasty associations.
posted by biogeo at 3:05 PM on August 16, 2020 [9 favorites]

Mod note: get back on topic folks.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:13 PM on August 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

So what is the new melody for the 50 States Song?

Fifty Nifty United States was always a superior song.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:05 PM on August 16, 2020

less crotchtety old whinging and moaning about how society isn’t allowed re-evaluate the past

If we should look at the past, is it also fair to consider if this is a performative gesture on the part of Unilever, a corporate entity with ethical and legal issues to contend with, some perhaps much larger than a mundane ice cream song from one of its subsidiaries?

If it needs to be about ice cream to be on topic, perhaps antitrust violations are relevant. If other matters are allowed, one might consider violations of environmental laws in Connecticut and California, or use of child labor overseas to extract and refine palm oil.

Ice cream is great. Racism is bad. I think most people generally agree with these sentiments. I'm not sure they are helped coming from a corporation that otherwise bends and breaks laws to benefit shareholders. This all feels a bit manipulative. Others are welcome to their opinions, etc.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:00 PM on August 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

I’m not quite sure who is supposed to be manipulating whom here?

One thing I’m sure I disagree with, though, is the notion that if you don’t solve every single problem in one fell swoop, then there’s no point in working on any one of them. Especially when the one problem is so easily fixed. Like, if the sink is running over, I don’t yell at the person who wants to turn the tap off because there are also loose shingles on the roof and weeds in the garden.

The ice cream song has a problematic history? I don’t see the downside to just... using a different song to sell ice cream? Nobody loses anything. You want to sing the old ice cream song, knock yourself out. Nobody’s going to jump out of the bushes and tape your mouth shut.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:14 PM on August 16, 2020 [5 favorites]

Wait, so you guys go up to the ice cream van and buy a single ice cream at a window to eat right then and there? That is different than here in Norway where the ice cream van sells cartons of ice cream lollies/sandwiches that you can chuck in you own freezer and eat at your own pace. I think that was the only way to buy ice cream sandwiches and such in bulk before the 90s, but I'll have to check with my parents. The mystery to me now is that the supermarket actually has a cheaper (and in most cases better) product, but the ice cream vans are still rolling.

Oh, and the tune is Norwegian Dance no. 2 by Edvard Grieg.
posted by Harald74 at 11:37 PM on August 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Short answer; nobody cares about Unilever’s motivations.

No one is arguring that this gesture somehow absolves the corporate parent of their wrong doings. No one is saying that Unilever’s motivations are altruistic.

The fact of the matter is:
- We got a bangin’ new RZA tune that ice cream mongers can download for free.
- The Minstrel tune is not being erased, merely being put on the back shelf with a historical note attached to it, still available to perform if someone is so motivated.

This is a small win, and it should be booked as such.

The revolutionary planning cadre meets after dessert.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 9:48 AM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]

As long as the dog recognizes the tune ...
posted by taz at 9:59 AM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

That is different than here in Norway where the ice cream van sells cartons of ice cream lollies/sandwiches that you can chuck in you own freezer and eat at your own pace.

Oh man if it were possible to get an entire carton of ice cream sandwiches from the ice cream truck all at once when I was a kid my head would have exploded
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:07 AM on August 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

nobody cares

With respect, I think there are some people care about corporate messaging, where it comes from, and why. I'm one of those people. I don't like being manipulated. It's an issue that definitely does matter to some people, even if it may not matter to you, personally.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:23 PM on August 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Like I guarantee that few people living would've heard Turkey in the Straw prior to the NPR thing

Hi! I had heard of this! I knew that "Turkey In The Straw" had racist baggage! I don't listen to NPR! Was I losing sleep over this? No. But this wasn't like some arcane cultural secret.
posted by zeusianfog at 4:19 PM on August 17, 2020 [4 favorites]