Color me de-light-ed (songs about "high yaller" girls)

[JR Brown]

(Colored, light, geddit? Not PC, but neither is this post.)

So while vanity-searching myself I came across this little gem: Juliana, Phebiana, Constantina Brown (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/amss:@field(TITLE+@od1(Juliana,+Phebiana,+Constantina+Brown++H++De+Marsan,+Publisher,+60+Chatham+Str eet,+N++Y++[n++d+]))), a novelty song by one J. Thompson from 1867 (tune here (http://www.pdmusic.org/1800s/67jpcb.mid) - warning, site plays music). I am quite tickled, because 1) the title subsumes two-thirds of my own name, and 2) it describes Ms Brown as "the prettiest yaller gal was ever in the town".

I get to be tickled by this because I am, in fact, a high yaller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_yellow) gal; somewhere between a mulatto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulatto) and a quadroon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadroon), if you want to get specific.

It's intended to be a humorous song; the jokes, aside from the hilarity of a colored woman being considered beautiful, are that the lady has "a lovely foot" which takes a number-nine shoe*, and her suitor (the singer, presumably also colored) is so ignorant that he believes the counterpart to a belle to be "a Belgerine" (a type of cloth). Hi-larious.

The other thing I found out today was that The Yellow Rose of Texas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Rose_of_Texas) was originally about "the sweetest rose of color this darkey ever knew". I knew that Puttin' On the Ritz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puttin%27_on_the_Ritz) had been de-racianated for popular consumption (it used to feature (http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/p/puttinontheritz.shtml) "high browns" in spangled dresses, "all misfits"), but I hadn't heard of TYRoT; apparently the "darky" references were removed when the song became popular with Texan troops in the Confederate Army. It seems there's an entire subgenre of songs that used to be about black people...

* Quite large, in an era that celebrated the petite and dainty - compare verse 2 of My Darling Clementine (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Oh_My_Darling,_Clementine) ("Sardine boxes, without topses, sandals were for Clementine"). Alas, I wear a size ten, so there is no further parallelism.

[The Devil's Grandmother]

It's intended to be a humorous song; the jokes, aside from the hilarity of a colored woman being considered beautiful, are that the lady has "a lovely foot" which takes a number-nine shoe*, and her suitor (the singer, presumably also colored) is so ignorant that he believes the counterpart to a belle to be "a Belgerine" (a type of cloth). Hi-larious.
I think you may have missed a joke, the singer rhymes teeth and breath in the second verse.
I used to know the words to TYRoT, but the racial elements of Puttin' on the Ritz were new to me. Thanks for the education!

[KlondikeGeoff]

I enjoyed your amusing and fascinating post.

Thanks a lot, now I'm not going to be able to get those lyrics (the chorus, at least) out of my head for days, especially after listening to the music too.

I do love the title. Had I only known about that years ago, I would have named my daughter that.

[Manduck]

So your real name is Phebiana Constantina?

[twickster]

I'm going to move this over to Cafe Society.

twickster, MPSIMS moderator

[KneadToKnow]

When else am I going to get to quote from one of my favorite movies (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106880/)?

Just look at you three brothers. Just look at you. Together.

You. You little black stove-pipe-colored nigga, Tasty. You are the same complexion as Marcus Garvey, the man that brought self-love to the black consciousness movement in the 1930s. And when we speak about complexion, we move into the political perspective of where y'all coming from.

You, Ice. You's a good, high-yellow, piss-colored motherfucker. Same complexion as Bob Marley. I mean, you even got that dreadlock thing going for you. You could even move into a whole Rasta thing, if you wanted to. But that's another story.

And you. You good red-boned, morani-colored, genie-in-a-bottle-looking motherfucker. You are the same complexion as Malcom X. That's right. Take off your hat. Jeeze! Red hair, just like Malcom!

Boy, I'm telling you, you brothers are gonna be large! But like I said, you got to be careful. Because y'all are telling the truth, and the white man don't want you all saying what you're saying.

[Nzinga, Seated]

Buju Banton has a song called 'Love Me Browning". Love that song so freakin' much. Great song. If I recall, there was something in the media about darker women being mad at him for making that song.

Funny thing about that is, I don't remember that actually happening. I have always been fully emerged in the dancehall culture, and I recall that song being everybody's jam! Light and dark alike. But the media kept saying dark skinned women were mad about the song. Odd, because he had countless songs singing the praises of darker women, why couldn't he have one about the 'light skin-ded' woman?

They say his song Love Black Woman, an ode to dark women, was a response to the outcry from darker women. But I think the song was a response to the media outcry.

Anyways, Love Black Woman is a terrific song, but Love me Browning is way better.

[RealityChuck]

Episode 25 of the podcast "Uncensored History of the Blues (http://www.purplebeech.com/blues/)" has several songs on the subject:

Brown Skin Gal - Butterbeans and Susie
Good Woman Blues - Leroy Carr
It's Heated - Frankie 'Half-Pint' Jaxon
Yellow Girl Blues - Texas Alexander
Some Scream High Yellow - Bo Weavil Jackson
Brownie Blues - Harry Gay and Stephen Tarter
Young Woman's Blues - Bessie Smith

[RealityChuck]

I should mention that the podcast is available free on iTunes if you want to listen to it.

[Spoke]

Yeah, Yellow Rose of Texas was a minstrel song, meant to be sung by a white man in blackface. the Virginia Minstrels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Minstrels) pioneered the style in the 1840s and it became a huge fad.

Stephen Foster's Oh Susannah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh!_Susanna) and Camptown Races (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camptown_Races) are other well-known examples of the genre.

[NoCoolUserName]

(Colored, light, geddit? Not PC, but neither is this post.)...JR, thank you for the education. As a middle-class white boy, I had no idea about "yellow" being anything other than a crayon in the Crayola set.

Next time I'm in Boston, I invite you to dinner. I'll charge it to the company and tell 'em we talked computer business. :)