# Explain the lyrics - Java Jive by Oakland and Drake **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 17, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849 "2011-06-17T16:18:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849/41 "2014-07-06T12:17:27Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > In fewer words, you have nothing. > > That’s exactly why serious word scholars don’t play these games. In the world of business, there’s a saying: The longer the tale, the harder the sale. ---
**Author:** ![Savi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/74df32/32.png) [@Savi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savi)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849/42 "2014-07-11T04:44:21Z")
Tweet-length dismissals are neither serious nor research. When you get around to looking up any terms yourself, do share your findings here. 🙂 Just to tie up one loose end: Dats = ‘Dat’s what I’m talking about!’ Boffo = awesome; fantastic Thanks to everyone for renewing my curiosity about a favourite song. Special thanks to our colleagues above who first suggested the possibility of drug slang. Theirs was not a hint that was ever going to get a warm welcome from the ‘fun song that doesn’t mean anything’ crowd. My own explorations showed me that nothing precludes this at all. An interpretation along these lines both fits the culture and accounts for otherwise puzzling lines in the lyrics. The discussion has deepened my appreciation of American culture in the century just past. Whenever I hear ‘Java Jive’ now, I will still welcome it like an old friend–a friend I understand a bit better, perhaps, than I once did, but remain fond of just the same. Enjoy your coffee. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Savi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/74df32/32.png) [@Savi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savi)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849/43 "2014-07-11T05:01:59Z")
For future reference: **Posts 35** and **38** present a detailed look at the lyrics of ‘Java Jive’ and show how they might reasonably be interpreted as incorporating period drug slang. The sources cited are easily available Internet materials and standard dictionaries. Those who are curious about this interpretation are referred to those posts. Additional information is always welcome. Thanks. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849/44 "2014-07-11T11:31:30Z")
> [@Savi](#): > > For future reference: **Posts 35** and **38** present a detailed look at the lyrics of ‘Java Jive’ and show how they might reasonably be interpreted as incorporating period drug slang. The sources cited are easily available Internet materials and standard dictionaries. > > Those who are curious about this interpretation are referred to those posts. Additional information is always welcome. > > Thanks. 🆒 You know, for someone who has written a lot with no real links to any evidence, you seem pretty smug. For grins, I Googled a couple of versions of What do the Lyrics of Java Jive mean? The only thing that I could find was this: [http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6736](http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6736) Which includes the following post: > [@](#): > > Peter Lorre, who starred in the role of Mr. Moto also played a evil henchmen in Arsenic & Old Lace(1944). Cary Grant plays the main character of Mortimer, who pays a visit to his two sweet aunts who raised him. Uncle Ted, who also resides at the residence suffers under the delusion that he is Teddy Roosevelt. He had the habit of blowing a bugle and running up the stairs(San Juan Hill) with the cry of “Charge!” He discovers that his dear old aunts have taken up the charitable mission of euthanizing lonely old men by taking them in as boarders, and offering them elderberry wine laced with poison; so that their last moments on earth would be pleasant ones. 12 souls are interred in the basement with the help of Uncle Ted who assumes that they are Panama Canal workers who died from malaria. To make the situation worse, Mortimer’s sadistic step-brother returns home with sidekick Dr. Einstein(Peter Lorre), and the corpse of his latest victim for the purpose of using the place for a temporary hideout and disposal. Mortimer arrives at the conclusion that he may have inheirited his family’s insanity. The cab driver arrives on the scene and witnesses the spectacle. Mortimer’s aunts reveal to him, to his relief, that he is not related and that his dying mother requested that they raise him. They also tell him that his father was a sea cook. Mortimer in the final scene triumphantly shouts out “I am not a Brewster. I am the son of a sea cook!! Charge!!!” The taxi driver sarcastically quips “I am not a taxi driver. I am a coffee pot.” It ain’t much and may be off by a year, but at least is based on _something_. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849/45 "2014-07-11T11:39:54Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > You know, for someone who has written a lot with no real links to any evidence, you seem pretty smug. > > For grins, I Googled a couple of versions of What do the Lyrics of Java Jive mean? > > The only thing that I could find was this: [http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6736](http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6736) > > Which includes the following post: > > It ain’t much and may be off by a year, but at least is based on _something_. (Pssst! Post #16.) ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849/46 "2014-07-11T11:50:55Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > (Pssst! Post #16.) :smack::smack::smack::smack: Ah, the Dope, the wonderful Dope. I have decided to claim I was blinded by the smugness. Yeah, that’s it. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849/47 "2014-07-11T15:42:40Z")
> [@Savi](#): > > For future reference: **Posts 35** and **38** present a detailed look at the lyrics of ‘Java Jive’ and show how they might reasonably be interpreted as incorporating period drug slang. The sources cited are easily available Internet materials and standard dictionaries. Are there? Then why haven’t you given us a post full of them? Let’s make this clear. There is only one way to establish a claim around here - and anywhere where sources are taken seriously. It is most distinctly NOT “here’s a ton of guesses, now go out and research them to prove me wrong.” A quick look around would give you hundreds, thousands, of examples in which posters make claims by doing their own research and posting cites to credible sources, minutely and at length. If you want anybody to spend even one minute paying attention to you, that’s the route you must take. Must. No exceptions. You haven’t done so. Look, you may be right in most or all of what you say. We’re haven’t said that you’re definitely wrong: we’re saying that you’ve made no case for your suppositions and we won’t do your work for you. In the meantime, you will get exactly what you see here. If you think you are right and that there are easily findable citations, then why haven’t you posted them? The obvious and immediate inference is that these citations don’t exist. You want to prove us wrong? You do so by proving us wrong. Nothing less will be accepted or given a moment’s consideration. ---
**Author:** ![Savi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/74df32/32.png) [@Savi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savi)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849/48 "2014-07-31T14:27:04Z")
My interpretation of the lyrics with supporting references and links appears in **Posts 35, 38 and 43**. Everything I’ve learned about the slang in ‘Java Jive’ is consistent with an interpretation of the song as manifesting early coffeehouse counterculture. ‘Pot’ and ‘moto’ are interpretive keys that suggest the experimentation taking place then with controlled substances. I’ll be interested in what anyone following up on this learns. Please share your findings about the slang here! Now enjoy **the 1940 recording of ‘Java Jive’ by the Ink Spots**. (For an extra shot of dats and boffo, give it a listen after reading the posts.) [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iP6IUqrFHjw/hqdefault.jpg ""The Java Jive" (Ink Spots, 1940)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP6IUqrFHjw) Performers: Orville ‘Hoppy’ Jones Deek Watson Bill Kenny Charlie Fuqua Thanks to the person whose question launched the discussion and to all who shared information. It’s been an interesting journey! ---
**Author:** ![Savi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/74df32/32.png) [@Savi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savi)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849/49 "2014-07-31T16:08:57Z")
A bit more detail, added by edit: > [@](#): > > My interpretation of the lyrics with supporting references and links appears in **Posts 35, 38 and 43**. > > Everything I’ve learned about the slang in ‘Java Jive’ is consistent with an interpretation of the song as manifesting early coffeehouse counterculture. ‘Pot’ and ‘moto’ are interpretive keys [together with ‘beans’, ‘tea’, ‘jive’ and ‘cabbage’] that suggest the experimentation taking place then with controlled substances. See the more detailed comments in **Posts 35, 38, and 42**. 🆒 Ink Spots ‘Java Jive’ (1940) [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iP6IUqrFHjw/hqdefault.jpg ""The Java Jive" (Ink Spots, 1940)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP6IUqrFHjw) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849/50 "2014-07-31T17:20:51Z")
> [@Savi](#): > > My interpretation of the lyrics with supporting references and links appears in **Posts 35, 38 and 43**. Your interpretations do. However, posts 35 and 43 contain **no links whatsoever**. Post 38 contains one link that says marijuana was called pot by 1938, one that contends that mota, not moto, is a Spanish term for pot, but with no date attached, and one that says both moto and mota mean pot, with no date attached. That’s it. The barest fraction of all your claims have been backed up. Since then you’ve asserted and asserted and asserted and provided nothing. To repeat: we have not said that you are wrong. We’ve consistently said you’ve done nothing worthwhile to prove your assertions. Prove us wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849/51 "2014-08-01T01:37:57Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > :smack::smack::smack::smack: > > Ah, the Dope, the wonderful Dope. > > I have decided to claim I was blinded by the smugness. Yeah, that’s it. > > :smack: Well, you added the insight that the reference was off by a year. The song was popular in 1940, and the play (_Arsenic and Old Lace_) didn’t open until 1941. That makes the connection pretty tenuous … maybe the songwriter saw a sneak preview, or knew the author? ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849/52 "2014-08-01T01:54:27Z")
Ooh, ooh! **Savi,** now do _The House at Pooh Corner!_ Chock-full of drug references. Everyone knows that A. A. Milne was a heavy dealer and Christopher Robin, his supplier. Pooh even had a prominently-featured _honey pot_, which was either his stash, his girlfriend, or his girlfriend’s stash… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-lyrics-java-jive-by-oakland-and-drake/585849.md?page=2)