On this day in 1953, novelist Shirley Jackson replied to a disappointed reader.
This is fascinating on several levels. (All of which are probably in the notes but I like to do the research anyways, at least to a point, esp about music.)
A) Shirley wrote The Lottery (published 1948), so if you like The Hunger Games & its ilk (incl that one episode of Sliders, iykyk), you’ve her to thank.
B) These are song lyrics that I hazard most of my generation knows from “The Joker”, released in 1973; it in turn had cribbed those lyrics from “Lovey Dovey”, released in 1954. Steve Miller Band (white) did credit and presumably pay the songwriters (not white), who were both successful in the industry.
C) They’re the kind of whimsically sexy lyrics that were a hallmark of early rock n roll*, which was indisputably Black; both of these facts caused white parents to be like OH NO TEH DEVIL in a big angry way
D) Whether Shirley was really into Black music or this particular picture is misdated (or just fictional, period) remains to be seen, but I know which story I’d prefer.
E) My fave version of The Joker is obviously KD Lang’s cover.
F) Can you tell I’m procrastinating at work
G) My sources were all Wikis, I mean plus my two college degrees in music, so take as you will
* even ‘rock n roll’ is a dirty double entendre, as is 'funk’. The moooore you knowwww
Ooh, adding to this (because my own first memory of hearing the line was in a history lesson that attributed it to Mae West in the 1920s)
