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Slim Gaillard - Yep Roc Hearesay

Slim Gaillard - Yep Roc Hearesay Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Best Of Slim Gailard
Released: 1945

Yep Roc Hearesay Lyrics

Yep Roc Hearesay

This song was banned on at least two Los Angeles radio stations for its suspicious lyric references to drugs and crime. The suspicion was really toward Slim Gaillard himself, who did indeed attract more than his share of suspicion. It was later revealed that the lyrics Slim used were taken through reading an Armenian dinner menu.

A now very overlooked artist of the '30s and '40s, Slim Gaillard was a cult hero of his time. At least 2 pages of Kerouac's On the Road make reference to Gaillard; "One night we went to see Slim Gaillard in a little Frisco nightclub. In Frisco great eager crowds of semi-intellectuals sat at his feet and listened to him on the piano, guitar and bongo drums... Now Dean approached him, he approached his God; he thought Slim Gaillard was God." He played several instruments and could tap dance while playing piano with the back of his hands. His most famous songs include "Flat Foot Floogie," "Cement Mixer" and the children's classic, "Down By The Station." His lyrics were all over the place, as he sang about food, cars, liquor, and whatever he was experiencing at the time. He made up songs as he went, and only looked back to play greater versions of them with greats such as Dizzy Gilespie and Charlie Parker. His music was a prelude to bebop Jazz, and he has even been coined as the true great granddaddy of modern rap.

The Andrews Sisters - Rum and Coca-Cola

The Andrews Sisters - Rum and Coca-Cola Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Capitol Collectors Series
Released: 1945

Rum and Coca-Cola Lyrics

If you ever go down Trinidad
They make you feel so very glad
Calypso sing and make up rhyme
Guarantee you one real good fine time
Drinkin' Rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the yankee dollar
Oh, beat it man, beat it
Since the yankee come to Trinidad
They got the young girls all goin' mad
Young girls say they treat 'em nice
Make Trinidad like paradise
Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the yankee dollar
Oh, you vex me, you vex me
From Chicachicaree to Mona's Isle
Native girls all dance and smile
Help soldier celebrate his leave
Make every day like New Year's Eve
Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the yankee dollar
It's a fact, man, it's a fact
In old Trinidad, I also fear
The situation is mighty queer
Like the yankee girl, the native swoon
When she hear der bingo croon
Drinkin' Rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the yankee dollar
Out on Manzanella Beach
G.I. romance with native peach
All night long, make tropic love
Next day, sit in hot sun and cool off
Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the yankee dollar
It's a fact, man, it's a fact
Rum and Coca-Cola
Rum and Coca-Cola
Workin' for the yankee dollar

Writer/s: AMSTERDAM, MOREY / BARON, PAUL / SULLAVAN, JERI / STILLMAN, AL
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Rum and Coca-Cola

During World War II, around 20,000 American GIs were stationed in Trinidad, ostensibly to deter any invasion. Unhappy with the situation, a local calypso musician named Rupert Grant, who went by the stage name of Lord Invader, wrote some lyrics commenting on how the American servicemen drank rum and coke, and then used their Yankee dollars to attract (or purchase the services of) the local women. The melody had been previously published as the work of Trinidadian calypso composer Lionel Belasco on a song titled "L'Année Passée," which was in turn based on a folk song from nearby Martinique. The track was a huge hit in Trinidad in 1943.

In 1945 the Andrews Sisters recorded a very similar song sung in hammy Trinidadian accents. It had the same title, general subject, and even some of the same lyrics but was stripped of its social commentary. According to Patty Andrews, "We had a recording date... we had some extra time and we just threw it in, and that was the miracle of it. It was actually a faked arrangement."

The Andrews Sisters' version became the biggest-selling song of the year and the the third biggest of the decade in the United States. Despite its popularity, the song was controversial and was banned by network radio stations because it mentioned an alcoholic beverage and hinted at prostitution. The fact that it mentioned a commercial product by name also meant that it could be construed as free advertising when broadcast.

Entertainer Morey Amsterdam and two business associates were credited with writing the Andrews Sisters' version. In an ensuing court case, it was found that Amsterdam, who had visited Trinidad when Lord Invader's hit was current, had indeed copied the song, and the calypso singer won an $150,000 in compensation. However, Amsterdam was allowed to retain copyright to the song.

The Andrews Sisters cover of Lord Invader's song was the first American Calypso hit. The most famous song in that genre would come in 1956 with Harry Belafonte's version of "The Banana Boat Song (Day-O)." In 1957, six different artists charted in the Top 40 with covers of that song.

When Desmond Carrington played this song in January 2014 on his program The Music Goes Round, he said in the 1940s, the BBC banned the Andrews Sisters recording as advertising, adding that it is indeed, but it is not about a mother and daughter selling a certain fizzy drink but "selling something rather different. Nobody seemed to notice that, including the BBC, unless of course they did, but didn't dare to tell us."

Frank Sinatra - The House I Live In

Frank Sinatra - The House I Live In Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Romance
Released: 1945

The House I Live In Lyrics

What is America to me
A name, a map, or a flag I see
A certain word, democracy
What is America to me

The House I Live In
A plot of Earth, a street
The grocer and the butcher
And the people that I meet

The children in the playground
The faces that I see
All races and religions
That's America to me

The place I work in
The worker by my side
The little town the city
Where my people lived and died

The howdy and the handshake
The air a feeling free
And the right to speak your mind out
That's America to me

The things I see about me
The big things and the small
The little corner newsstand
Or the house a mile tall

The wedding and the churchyard
The laughter and the tears
The dream that's been a growing
For a hundred and fifty years

The town I live in
The street, the house, the room
The pavement of the city
Or the garden all in bloom

The church the school the clubhouse
The million lights I see
But especially the people
That's America to me

Writer/s: ALLAN, LEWIS / ROBINSON, EARL
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

The House I Live In

This became a patriotic anthem in America during World War II. The lyrics describe the wonderful things about the country, with images of the era like the grocer, the butcher, and the churchyard. The "house" is a metaphor for the country.

The song was written in 1943 with lyrics by Abel Meeropol and music by Earl Robinson. Meeropol, who wrote it under the pen name Lewis Allan, had very liberal views and mixed feelings about America. He loved the constitutional rights and freedoms that America was based on, but he hated the way people of other races, religions, and political views were often treated. His lyrics do not reflect the way he thought America was but what it had the potential to be. With the country under attack, he wanted to express why it was worth fighting for.

Meeropol was dogged by the government for his liberal (some would say communist) views. He took a particular interest in the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were accused of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union and executed in 1953. Meeropol felt they were wrongly accused, and he and his wife adopted their two sons when they were put to death. The sons, Michael and Robert, took Meeropol's last name (it was easier to be a Meeropol than a Rosenberg at the time) and have spent their adult lives trying to clear their birth parents' names.

Meeropol wrote a lot of songs, including "Strange Fruit," which was about the horrors of lynchings and became Billie Holiday's signature song. Many songs he wrote were parodies of America, with commentary on racism and political oppression. He wrote several versions of this, including one for children and one that expanded the "house" to mean the whole world, not just America. He also wrote a scathing version about things he felt were bad in the US. The idyllic images were replaced with lines like "The cruelty and murder that brings our country shame."

Earl Robinson, who wrote the music, also had very liberal views. During the McCarthy era, he was hounded for being a communist and blacklisted from Hollywood, making it hard for him to find work. Before his death in 1991, he wrote presidential campaign songs for FDR (1944), Henry Wallace (1948), and Jesse Jackson (1984).

This has been recorded by a slew of artists, including Mahalia Jackson, Paul Robeson, Sonny Rollins, and Josh White. Sinatra's version is the most famous, as it was used in a short film he starred in with the same name in 1945. When Meeropol saw the film, he became enraged when he learned they deleted the second stanza of his song, which he felt was crucial to the meaning. He had to be removed from the theater. With its message of racial harmony, the second stanza was deemed too controversial for the film.

Sinatra loved this song and performed it many times, even as his political views moved from left to right as he got older. As an Italian-American, Sinatra experienced bigotry growing up, but he also loved the United States. He sang this at an inaugural he produced for John F. Kennedy, and again in the Nixon White House, and performed it for Ronald Reagan at the re-dedication of the Statue Of Liberty in 1986.

Charles Pignone, Vice President of Frank Sinatra Enterprises, also remembers watching him perform this in the '90s during the First Gulf War. "He would sing that every decade of his career," Pignone said in a Songfacts interview. "And that was another song that just stayed with him throughout his life." He added: "I remember sometimes he would tear up after 'The House I Live In."

This regained popularity among Americans in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. A lot of people found it comforting at a difficult time.

In 2002, comedian Bill Cosby opened some of his shows with this playing while a light shined on an empty chair. The song had meaning for Cosby not only because of September 11, but also because of his son, who was murdered in 1997 at age 27 when he pulled over to fix a flat tire.

Sinatra appeared in a 10-minute short for RKO, also titled The House I Live In, where he lectured a group of boys on racial and religious tolerance. Written by Albert Maltz, produced by Frank Ross and directed by Mervyn LeRoy, the film won a special Honorary Academy Award in 1946.

Here's Sinatra's introduction to this song, live at Madison Square Garden in 1974: "It's a song about this great, big, wonderful, imperfect country. I say imperfect because if it were perfect it wouldn't be any fun trying to fix it, trying to make it work better, trying to make sure that everybody gets a fair shake and then some. My country is personal to me because my father, who wasn't born here, rest his soul, he made sure that I was born here. And he used to tell me when I was a kid that America was a land of dreams and a dreamland, well I don't know if our country fulfilled all of his dreams while he was alive, but tonight with all of us together for this hour, it sure fulfills my dreams. And to all of you in the country and all of you watching tonight, here's a song about a place we call home, probably the greatest nation ever put on this earth."