And great minds think alike.
I can find you a cite from 1849, written by a white, religious guy.
He said, “This would be a good day to die.”
From Making of America database at the LOC.
Perhaps he heard it from an Indian, or perhaps an Indian heard it from him.
It doesn’t seem like that unusual a sentiment. It might have occurred to almost anyone in the last 1000 years.
Dogface is quoting a FireSign Theatre bit, Tangent. The tune above is sung in a Native American style.
Huh… shows what I know. I thought it was invented for the Klingon culture on the various Trek shows.
Bwahahhaaahhaa!
Didn’t anyone else think this was funny?
They used the line in the movie “Billy Jack”, which came out around the same time as “Little Big Man”, and which was almost as funny (if unintentionally).
StG
I’m sure someone said ‘and your little dog too’ way before 1939. As I’m sure someone said ‘Frankly mah Deah, I don’t give a damn’ before the same year.So I still say Little Big Man brought the phrase into popular culture.
But did anybody say “Pardon me while I cut off my balls and shove a hot poker up my ass”* before George Carlin.
Sir Rhosis
*or something like that
Well, some of those medieval penitents could be pretty hard-core.
Bwahahhaaahhaa!
I always prefered Terry Pratchett’s dwarf version:
“Today is a good day for SOMEBODY ELSE to die!”
The phrase was first put into Western pop-culture with the publication of Black Elk Speaks in 1932. There Black Elk recounts his experiences fighting with Crazy Horse at LBH and Crazy Horse’s aforementioned battle cry.
Really? Guess I never heard that bit.
The song appears in Smoke Signals, the movie quoted above by Chronos. The two main characters sing it during a long bus ride.
Of course, Black Elk was 13 when he fought Custer, right?
And he’s telling this in 1932.
If this put the phrase into popular culture, I’d be surpirsed, but I’m willing to accept cites that it appeared in print anytime during the next 30 years after 1932.
Brilliance. If you told me that Terry Pratchett himself had written that, I’d have believed you. I’d even make it my sig, if I were the type to, you know, display my sig.
Bloody Klingons.