# Question about Song "In the Ghetto" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 2, 2018, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-song-in-the-ghetto/808031 "2018-02-02T14:47:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2018, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-song-in-the-ghetto/808031/21 "2018-02-02T20:32:54Z")
**[Moderating]**: The OP was wrong to include the dig about Republicans, and **Starving Artist** and **Scumpup** are both wrong to be continuing and escalating the digs. Let’s just cut all of that off right here. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2018, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-song-in-the-ghetto/808031/22 "2018-02-02T20:45:18Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > I just took a listen to the end. > “And as her young man dies…” the audio fades out a bit. Then on “On a cold and grey Chicago morn…” The audio comes in strong. > I’m picturing the camera zooming out from the first woman’s face, out the window, pan across the city, zoom in another window to the second mother’s face. Yeah. Frankly, it seems to lose impact if it’s just about a single incredibly unfortunate woman as opposed to something happening throughout the ghetto to multiple families. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-song-in-the-ghetto/808031/23 "2018-02-02T21:03:03Z")
I never thought there was a familial relationship, just a endemic one. However, I have been known to be wrong…from time to time. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2018, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-song-in-the-ghetto/808031/24 "2018-02-02T21:52:20Z")
If you’re thinking about it more comprehensively than the writer did when he wrote it, (and the writer was Mac Davis,) then you might come up with many interpretations, but you might not be talking abot the song anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2018, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-song-in-the-ghetto/808031/25 "2018-02-02T22:38:12Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **[Moderating]**: > > The OP was wrong to include the dig about Republicans, and **Starving Artist** and **Scumpup** are both wrong to be continuing and escalating the digs. Let’s just cut all of that off right here. I apologize for the dig. I find it interesting in myself that I mentioned “victim of poverty and racism” when the race of the dying man or the baby is not mentioned in the song. Not, repeat, not trying to escalate. Just commenting on an assumption I made in the OP that I’m not real proud of. :(:(☹ ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2018, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-song-in-the-ghetto/808031/26 "2018-02-02T23:25:53Z")
Not trying to escalate either and oddly enough find myself trying to assuage **TMC’s** guilt. No, **TMC** , the race of the dying man isn’t mentioned in the song, but it’s pretty clear from the title. As an aside on Mac Davis, the song’s author. I was working for an international airline in 1971, doing a variety of jobs working in operations, freight and baggage. On this particular day my job was to unload baggage from the plane through doors that opened from bottom to top to the customers waiting on the other side. I had just raised the doors when Mac Davis appeared right next to me. He had a concert in town that night and said it would be best if he helped me unload because he knew his crew’s bags. Celebrities could get away with entry to private areas like that in those days. So here we were, busily unloading bags for the airline’s customers while he set the bags for his crew off to the side. (Some of the customers recognized him and got quite a kick out of the fact that Mac Davis was unloading their bags from the baggage cart.) Anyway, once we were done I mentioned having seen him on the _Tonight Show_ multiple times and that I really liked his music. He asked if I had tickets to his show and I told him I didn’t because they were sold out. He offered to write me passes but I had to get back to the plane for the next load, so he said he’d wait for me. Which he did, for about 45 minutes and holding up two station wagons full of band members, because I got held up by an unexpected issue involving the plane. Finally, they had to give up and leave while I was still tied up with the plane, but I’ve never forgotten his courtesy to me that day and what a nice guy he was to hold up all those people for that long just to give a random airline worker a free pass to his show. Really a great guy. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2018, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-song-in-the-ghetto/808031/27 "2018-02-02T23:33:15Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > But he’s definitely saying this is only a problem in Chicago, right? 😉 “Statistics tell us that every ten minutes, a man is run over in this city. So, whoever that man is, he better leave town!” -paraphrased from a vaguely-remembered 1950s issue of _MAD_. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2018, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-song-in-the-ghetto/808031/28 "2018-02-03T11:33:26Z")
Thank you **Starving Artist**. (sniffle) While I’ve never met Mac Davis, he always seemed laid back and genuine. Plus his song _I Believe in Music_ was damn near the anthem of the early seventies. My personal favorite of his is _It’s Hard to be Humble_. It’s the world’s most perfect sing-a-long song. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-song-in-the-ghetto/808031/29 "2018-02-04T04:09:30Z")
If we can get by the serious stuff and back to the mocking alluded to in the OP… we used to make up verses and sing them. The only one I recall is the one I contributed: “There’s a young boy down on his luck, where I made my first one million bucks… in the ghetto.” Dennis ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-song-in-the-ghetto/808031/30 "2018-02-05T17:40:07Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > I apologize for the dig. I find it interesting in myself that I mentioned “victim of poverty and racism” when the race of the dying man or the baby is not mentioned in the song. > > Not, repeat, not trying to escalate. Just commenting on an assumption I made in the OP that I’m not real proud of. :(:(☹ Wiktionary defines “ghetto” as “An (often impoverished) area of a city inhabited predominantly by members of a specific nationality, ethnicity or race.” Ergo, strictly speaking, your assumption is valid. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-song-in-the-ghetto/808031.md?page=1)