I’d love for Cecil to get involved on this one. I don’t have access to all the music I cited, otherwise I’d listen to them all.
Here is what I think you’ll find - there will be no instance of the precise tune you’re talking about before 1974, in Carl Douglas’s Kung Fu Fighting. It will turn out to be an adaptation by Douglas et. al. of various pentatonic motifs heard in “oriental” films seen prior to that time. Those in turn will have inherited from forms occurring musicals, operas, and films dating from the first Western portrayals of Far East Orientalism in 1896.
Seen in that light, it will actually turn out to be the most famous in a succession of very similar motifs that have occurred in the past hundred years or so.
That’s all I have to say until something more authoritative appears! To prove this assertion wrong, the next step is to find that specific tune occurring before “Kung Fu Fighting.” Challenge! (said with French pronounciation).
I’m surprised its been so difficult to agree on the piece he’s asking about. I recognized it immediately. Here’s a link to The Vapors CD on Amazon. Play track one (Turning Japanese), the snippet occurs between about 0:11 and 0:14 in the track.
It’s probably considered offensive (i.e. politically incorrect) today. Maybe to Asian people what that stereotypical drumbeat, DUM dum dum dum DUM dum dum dum, is to Native Americans. In fact I seem to remember a thread which stated that that indian drumbeat was indeed an invention of Hollywood westerns.
Anyway, this piece of oriental sounding music (usually played on a xylophone) also used to be heard in cartoons, like when a character would be hit on the head with a trash can lid, grow a Fu-Manchu mustache, buckteeth and start spouting, “Chin-chow-chung” etc.
I’m positive the Vapors’ appearance ins’t the first instance. The opening riff was meant to invoke an asian cliche that everyone had heard before, so it was already a cliche.
I’m 42, and I can clearly recall pop-culture references to that riff when I was in my teens or earlier, perhaps in scooby-doo cartoons and such. And it was cliche even then.
I’d guess the origin is at least in the 60’s or earlier.
I too know exactly what the OP is talking about. Unfortunately, I have no idea where it came from.
I’m fairly certain that’s incorrect, because I recall hearing that song for the first time, and thinking, “Ha, ha - they put that little Chinese song in there as a joke”. That tune is a sort of musical joke; it’s a stereotype of what Westerners think Oriental music sounds like. We used to sing it as kids. I remember it, in the exact same form, as far back as my memory goes.
Where it came from might just be a mystery, just like that “Nyah…nyah, nyah, nyah…nyah” song that kids always sing.
And I can remember hearing other subtly different variations of it in old films and television shows. If you were correct, I’d think someone would have turned something up by now (and I’ve tried as hard as anyone). Personally I think your memory may be playing tricks on you if you think you remember this exact tune, unaltered from the form we’re discussing here. It’s no slight on your memory, because there are so many subtle variations out there in music and film that sound nearly the same.
At any rate, my WAG from memory is no better than anyone else’s, and none of us can seem to dig up the tune, so I guess we are not able to arrive at a conclusion.
No, what you heard was a different tune. Just because you’ve heard other pentatonic-sounding riffs in your life doesn’t mean they’re variations on this one. The one we’re talking about here is always a note iterated 4 times followed by a note a whole step lower iterated twice, followed by a note a minor third lower, iterated twice, and then back up a minor third, iterated once. And I have a pretty good memory for those things. Besides, you could call any of my brothers, say, “Sing the oriental riff from when you were a kid”, and I guarantee they’d all sing the exact same riff.
Or perhaps you have heard variations of it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist in the form we’re talking about, before “Kung Foo Fighting”.
Why do you say that? You think it doesn’t exist because a bunch of dudes on a message board can’t find it’s exact origin? I disagree.
Squeegee remembers it too - before “Kung Foo Fighting”. I’m gonna have to disagree with you here. Nothing personal, but I’m reasonably certain that, as squeegee said, it was a reference to an already-existing riff.
Either I’ve misstated my position, or you’ve misunderstood it.
First, I do remember hearing, both in recent and distant memory, different variations on the tune in which only the first beat (the “da da da da” in this thread’s parlance) was varied, with the rest of it remaining the same. Close variants exist. I think that, prior to “Kung Fu Fighting” in 1974, the tune in question probably existed. But it probably coexisted with dozens of such variants. It was just one of many in the “big barrel of 99-cent stock oriental riffs.” None were famous enough to merit any named mention.
All versions were fairly forgettable; the reason you and your brothers instinctively respond with this specific variant is that it’s been popularized recently in a couple of well-known songs. You re-remember that this popularized version was the one that appeared throughout your childhood. It’s like the people who say they remember seeing the Kennedy assassination on TV when it happened in 1963. They’re remembering footage that was in fact released almost a decade later. It may sound presumptive of me to say that, but you’re the one who said unequivocally that there weren’t any variants of this fairly generic tune. Doesn’t that sound really unlikely after thinking about it again?
I prefer things to have answers rather than not have answers, but I really don’t think we’ll find an original source on this.
Well, I think we’re a fairly smart bunch of dudes, and we’ve wrung the marrow out of the question fairly well. Either you’ll agree or you won’t.
Since we all know which tune is in question and it’s basically one person’s memory against another, there’s no sense in me posting in this one anymore. I just leave you with the fact that if you’re to disprove my theory, you’ll have to find an instance of the tune before 1974. Having taken the negative side, I on the other hand am in the convenient position of being able to invoke “it is impossible to prove a negative.”
There are variations of the tune in The Hollies’ “Oriental Sadness,” as well as in two instrumentals that “surf” type bands recorded a lot in Europe in the early to mid 60s, “Changhai” and “Hong Kong.” I believe Les Sauterelles (sp?) had a minor hit in continental Europe with the latter. So that brings it back as an established stereotype at least a decade earlier.
In the US you also had a rash of quite racist tunes with variations among garage and surf bands in the same period.
I’m going to check some of the anti-Japanese tunes (I know, wrong ethnic group, but I’ve a feeling “all those people look alike” to the composers…) I have from the 40s to see if they draw on that directly. You may well find variations in racist hot jazz tunes from the 1920s as well, but no particular titles come to mind offhand.
Earlier than that the best bet in tracking it in popular music is likely sheet music. I’d be shocked in there aren’t racist “Oriental” joke songs from the turn of the last century or earlier whose sheet music still exists. Anyone up on those collections?
Nattoguy, I’m not sure why you’re relying on “Kung Fu Fighting” as the seminal instance of the “that chinese song” melody. KFF came out as a result of the popularity of the “Kung Fu” TV series. KFF was a throw-away pop-tune meant to capitalize on the fad-du jour, and it felt like it. I was about 12 at the time, and remember both pretty well. That darned song was on the radio for weeks, and I hated it, as only a 12-year-old could.
In my opinion, the opening riff was invoking a cliche that already existed. I think you’re saying the same thing, but that before KFF the cliche was one of many, but KFF made that riff definitive in the our shared consciousness. I disagree, it felt immediately cliche when that song started to play. Sadly, I have little proof to offer other than that.
OK, here’s an instance of the “Chinese Riff” that would predate KFF, if we could track it down:
There’s a Warner Brother’s Tweetie & Sylvester cartoon that I’m pretty sure contains the melody, and would have been made in the 50’s or 60’s. I don’t recall the plot, but the ending had Sylvester hit by something so large, or falling so far, that he went splat through the planet and ends up in China. You see Sylvester plop out of the earth with the perspective inverted - the sky below. The camera turns over and we see Sylvester gawking at pagodas and other chinese brik-a-brak. Queue “Chinese Riff”, exactly the same as KFF, and just as cliched in this instance. A Chinese Tweetie appears, and says in jibberish fake Chinese, with subtitles, “I thought I saw a puddy tat.”
All right, here’s something that might be a precursor to that “Chinese riff”: Check out “Chinatown, My Chinatown” from 1910 at Parlor Songs (MIDI version). The opening notes are definitely familiar – not quite the instantly recognizable series you think of, but pretty close.
If anyone has a University account with access to the Journal of the American Musicological Society, it would be awfully interesting to discover the contents of “Chinatown, Whose Chinatown? Defining America’s Borders with Musical Orientalism” by Charles Hiroshi Garrett (linked page is an abstract; the full pdf is available to subscribers only). From the abstract: “[T]he song exemplifies turn-of-the-century musical orientalism as it was directed toward a local immigrant community. Yet the popular standard continues to resonate today in performance, recordings, film, television, cartoons, advertising, and the latest entertainment products. To account for the song’s enduring cultural impact, this essay traces its history across diverse performance contexts over the last century. [my bold]” Tantilizing!
I think zut is definitely on to something. His cite seems to push back the riff to the early 1900’s. Cool beans.
On the KFF front: it just popped into my head that Doobie Brothers’ China Grove, released in 1973, a year before KFF, references the “chinese music” theme in the guitar progression. Not an exact match, but definitely a reference.
What several of us now are telling you is that yes, that precise tune did exist before 1974. Whether you personally have heard other tunes that sound similar, doesn’t change that fact.
That directly contradicts your earlier post.
I understand what you’re saying, but I disagree.
That wasn’t the meaning I was trying to convey. I was trying to refute your ridiculous assertion that, because you believe you have heard “variations” of the tune at some unspecified time in the past, that you can therefore conclude that it didn’t exist in the form that we remember. Having other “oriental tunes” does not mean this one did not exist.
Actually, it’s several people against just one, namely you. And even if your memory is somehow superior to ours, and you do legitimately remember “variations” of the tune (which seems reasonable) it still doesn’t prove that the one in question didn’t exist in its precise form prior to “Kung Foo Fighting”.
I never saw any of those films, but I do recall (one of many variations of) the sereotypical tune appearing as part of the theme for the cartoon series The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan Check out the cast list on the linked page – although Charlie is played by Keye Luke (perhaps the only actor of Asian descent to essay the role), daughter Anne Chan is voiced by none other than Jodie Foster!
I recall Jay Leno telling a joke which went something like this:
OK, I’m not saying that it could not possibly have existed. But I’m sure, almost positive, that you won’t find a named reference to it, nor a recording of it prior to that point. Before 1974 it was only one of dozens of similarly written Oriental motifs, with nothing to distinguish it from another. Musically speaking this borders on nonexistence. I admit I chose the wrong words but it’s only because I thought the meaning was more than evident.
You’re right. It doesn’t prove it. It’s impossible to prove a negative. The positive is easily proven, all you have to do is produce a recording or score of this precise tune. I’d have accepted a close variation, which Zut may have hit on above, but someone specified that we have to talk about this precise tune, with the precise sequence and rhythm specified. And because of that specification I’ve latched onto “Kung Fu Fighting.” Let’s call it “The Ubiqitous Orientalist Motif Featured Prominently In Kung Fu Fighting and Turning Japanese.” Or TUOMFPIKFF for something short and easy to remember.
Produce a score or recording of it prior to Kung Fu Fighting, and you get to change the name. Bottom line… that’s all that’s needed here, unless you want to relent on your stricture that it has to be this precise tune. Under those relaxed guidelines we may be handing the trophy to Zut.
hey look, i was able to view this thing that Zut posted, and it does give some hints, but it seems rather inconclusive.
…instead, “Chinatown, My Chinatown” relies on standard musical devices of the era: a short piano introduction and vamp; two verses and a chorus constructed with two- and four-bar phrases; and a syllabic, diatonic melody set to triadic harmonies and following tonal procedures. A significant exception, however, occurs in the song’s opening bars. Schwartz pulls open the curtain on Chinatown with a singsong rhythmic pattern, which also offers pentatonic hints on its way toward a major key. Significantly, Schwartz’s opening phrase resembles an extremely well known trope of musical orientalism—one of the most efficient that the West has developed to signal “Asia”—which employs the same rhythmic pattern, features an inversion of Schwartz’s melodic line (C–A–G–A instead of G–A–C–A), and shares its voicing of parallel fourths (Ex. 3). Such orientalist shorthand remains recognizable to twenty-first-century listeners, since these tropes continue to inhabit today’s popular music. (42) Thus, as clearly as the song’s title captures its subject, the opening moments of “Chinatown, My Chinatown” inform listeners that the song aims to fashion Asian difference.
(42) - For instance, The Vapors opened their pop hit “Turning Japanese” (1980) with an electric version of this riff, and their novelty song continues to mark Asian difference in recent film soundtracks, including Charlie’s Angels (2000) and Not Another Teen Movie (2001).
*
from:
GARRETT, CHARLES HIROSHI. Journal of the American Musicological Society 2004, vol. 57, no. 1.
Um, so would you say that a recording of, say, a Scooby Do cartoon from 1968, would this be sufficient or not? I ask because you seem to be distinquishing between a “recording or score” and everything else. If that’s the case, I’d deem it incorrect – the whole argument is that this riff was an ancient cliche at the time KFF was made, any an instance (or, better, multiple instances) from popular culture would tend to prove this was the case.
“Um”, yes. Being a recording, a recording of Scooby Doo, it falls under the rubric of recordings. Or, if you prefer, recorded audio, or captured soundwaves. Or a musical score that describes what such waves would sound like. Whatever. I hope I don’t have to make an exhaustive list of things that qualify as a cite. The point is that I personally am not going to accept your memory, my memory, or your brother’s memory as conclusive. What I’m saying in my rambling way is:
It doesn’t have a name, any more than the “nyah…nyah, nyah, nyah…nyah” taunt has a name, or the little pentatonic riff that signals when the Indians are coming in old movies has a name. Next, you’ll be telling us that Buddy Rich invented the “Indian riff” when he quoted it in “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”. :rolleyes:
Nonsense. What, you think it has to be published on sheet music as the “Oriental Riff”, available in stores everywhere, or it doesn’t EXIST???
The fact that many of us, simply by looking at the thread title, knew exactly which riff the OP was referring to, distinguishes it. I was humming the tune in my head before I even opened the thread.
The piano tune Zut linked to isn’t the one we’re talking about. It’s similar in the sense that it’s using the pentatonic scale to evoke an Oriental flavor, but the similarity ends there.
