Stupid Question ™
May 3, 2004
By John Ruch
© 2004
Q: What is a mojo pin?
—Eve Lighthouse, Columbus, Ohio
A: “Mojo pin” is a term apparently invented by the late singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley in his song of the same name. It has since become the name of at least two rock bands and a European nightclub, among who knows what else.
The song “Mojo Pin” is the opening cut on Buckley’s acclaimed 1994 debut album “Grace.” He wrote the song with guitarist Gary Lucas when part of Lucas’s band Gods and Monsters. Buckley wrote the words.
The relevant part of the lyrics runs: “If only you’d come back to me/If you laid at my side/Wouldn’t need no mojo pin/To keep me satisfied.”
The context makes it fairly clear that a “mojo pin” is a hypodermic needle full of heroin, as the lyrics go on to say, “I’m blind and tortured, the white horses flow.” “Horse” or “white horse” is a slang term for heroin.
And indeed, asked by an interviewer about the song, Buckley confirmed that “mojo pin” is “a euphemism for a dropper full of smack that you shoot in your arm.” (As quoted in “Rolling Stone” in 1997.)
The song seems to be a personification of drugs as a woman, or a depiction of drugs as a sorry substitute for love. (Or perhaps both.)
“Mojo” is a 1960s slang term for morphine and/or heroin, the origin being unknown. It’s probably related to the more familiar meaning of “mojo”—voodoo magic—which probably comes from an African or Gullah term.
“Mojo” also developed connotations of “libido” or “moxie” in the 1960s.
Buckley died at age 30 on May 29, 1997 by drowning in the Mississippi River at Memphis, Tennessee, where he was recording an album. Contrary to what the “Mojo Pin” lyrics might suggest, he reportedly was not a heroin user, and drugs played no role in his accidental death.
However, his father Tim Buckley, also an eclectic musician, died of a combination of heroin and alcohol in 1975 at the even younger age of 28.
But Jeff Buckley barely knew his father—whose death involved snorted, not injected, heroin—so there is probably little direct influence on the “Mojo Pin” lyrics there.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
March 29, 2008
"Jimmy Crack Corn"
Stupid Question ™
Sept. 22, 2003
By John Ruch
© 2003
Q: What does “Jimmy crack corn” mean, and why does he not care?
—Matt, Columbus, Ohio
A: This strange phrase comes from a song first published in 1846 as “Jim Crack Corn, or The Blue Tail Fly.” (“Jimmy” is a modern mishearing.)
The song is credited to Daniel Emmett, a member of the then-popular blackface minstrel group the Virginia Minstrels.
Sung from a slave’s point of view, the song is about the slave’s task of shooing flies away from his master. A fly manages to bite the master’s pony, which bolts and throws the master to his death.
This story is told in seven verses separated by the chorus, “Jim crack corn, I don’t care [repeated three times]/Ole Massa gone away.”
“Jim” surely is the slave himself. It was a common minstrel-show generic name for a slave, a shortening of the term “Jim Crow,” the infamous title of one of the first blackface songs. (The modern version often inserts “and” before “I don’t care,” wrongly suggesting that “Jim” and “I” are different people.)
“Crack corn” probably refers to the common practice of “cracking” (crushing or breaking open) corn kernels for use in food, especially hominy. Corn-cracking was common in the South and would likely be the work of slaves.
In the context of the song, “I don’t care” implies that corn-cracking work isn’t so hard now that the master is dead, or that the slave has returned to work not caring about his death. In short, he’s happy the master is dead—a reading often taken by abolitionists, and the interpretation that keeps the song alive on children’s records and folk albums today.
However, it is possible that the “Jim crack corn” chorus actually had an independent life of its own.
“Jim Crack Corn” is just a rewrite of an 1844 song called “De Blue Tail Fly,” another minstrel song that tells the same story with some of the exact same verses. However, the chorus or refrain of that song consisted only of the single line, “An scratch ’im wid a brier too.”
“Jim crack corn, I don’t care” is such a weird phrase that it’s hard to believe Emmett completely invented it for use as a chorus.
Minstrel performers ripped off music from real African-Americans and from each other. It’s possible that the line came from an actual slave work song, with “I don’t care” referring to a put-on lack of concern at the monotony of the work. It’s also possible the line comes from another popular song in which it meant something different.
There is evidence for an independent existence of the phrase. A 1940 Federal Writers’ Project report recounted a South Carolina story about a “wandering musician” called James Pearson. He was known as Jim Crack Pearson for his signature ditty “Jim Crack Corn and I Don’t Care,” the lyrics of which consisted entirely of that phrase repeated over and over. (Note the lack of Emmett’s explanatory line, “Ole Massa gone away.”)
The Pearson story is dubious. But if it’s true, it indicates the phrase could have been a sheer nonsense line repeated for fun.
Sept. 22, 2003
By John Ruch
© 2003
Q: What does “Jimmy crack corn” mean, and why does he not care?
—Matt, Columbus, Ohio
A: This strange phrase comes from a song first published in 1846 as “Jim Crack Corn, or The Blue Tail Fly.” (“Jimmy” is a modern mishearing.)
The song is credited to Daniel Emmett, a member of the then-popular blackface minstrel group the Virginia Minstrels.
Sung from a slave’s point of view, the song is about the slave’s task of shooing flies away from his master. A fly manages to bite the master’s pony, which bolts and throws the master to his death.
This story is told in seven verses separated by the chorus, “Jim crack corn, I don’t care [repeated three times]/Ole Massa gone away.”
“Jim” surely is the slave himself. It was a common minstrel-show generic name for a slave, a shortening of the term “Jim Crow,” the infamous title of one of the first blackface songs. (The modern version often inserts “and” before “I don’t care,” wrongly suggesting that “Jim” and “I” are different people.)
“Crack corn” probably refers to the common practice of “cracking” (crushing or breaking open) corn kernels for use in food, especially hominy. Corn-cracking was common in the South and would likely be the work of slaves.
In the context of the song, “I don’t care” implies that corn-cracking work isn’t so hard now that the master is dead, or that the slave has returned to work not caring about his death. In short, he’s happy the master is dead—a reading often taken by abolitionists, and the interpretation that keeps the song alive on children’s records and folk albums today.
However, it is possible that the “Jim crack corn” chorus actually had an independent life of its own.
“Jim Crack Corn” is just a rewrite of an 1844 song called “De Blue Tail Fly,” another minstrel song that tells the same story with some of the exact same verses. However, the chorus or refrain of that song consisted only of the single line, “An scratch ’im wid a brier too.”
“Jim crack corn, I don’t care” is such a weird phrase that it’s hard to believe Emmett completely invented it for use as a chorus.
Minstrel performers ripped off music from real African-Americans and from each other. It’s possible that the line came from an actual slave work song, with “I don’t care” referring to a put-on lack of concern at the monotony of the work. It’s also possible the line comes from another popular song in which it meant something different.
There is evidence for an independent existence of the phrase. A 1940 Federal Writers’ Project report recounted a South Carolina story about a “wandering musician” called James Pearson. He was known as Jim Crack Pearson for his signature ditty “Jim Crack Corn and I Don’t Care,” the lyrics of which consisted entirely of that phrase repeated over and over. (Note the lack of Emmett’s explanatory line, “Ole Massa gone away.”)
The Pearson story is dubious. But if it’s true, it indicates the phrase could have been a sheer nonsense line repeated for fun.
March 28, 2008
Song Fade-Out
Stupid Question ™
Sept. 15, 2003
By John Ruch
© 2003
Q: What was the first song to fade out at the end?
—Dennis, Columbus, Ohio
A: It is of course impossible to say exactly—there have been too many recordings over the years, and too many of them lost.
More importantly, the exact aesthetic and/or technical reasons for the fade-out are unclear. It wasn’t always a quick song-ender or DJ segue convenience.
Bill Haley’s cover version of “Rocket 88” (1951), often considered the first rock song, fades out to indicate the titular car driving away. There are claims that the Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week” (recorded 1964) was the first song to use the reverse effect—fade-in. (It also fades out.)
Both songs were influential hallmarks of modern music. But both fade-in and fade-out were used together long before to simulate the sound of a marching band passing by the listener.
The earliest such recording anybody could name for me is an 1894 78 rpm record called “The Spirit of ’76,” a narrated musical vignette with martial fife-and-drum that gets louder as it “nears” the listener and quieter as it “moves away.”
The fade-out as a simulation of a moving sound source seems to continue right up to “Rocket 88.” But other examples aren’t so obvious (though fade-out may always imply that the song continues forever and we’re only passing by it for a few minutes).
The oldest true songs with fade-out pointed out to me by 78 record fans bear no obvious relationship to movement. One is “Barkin’ Dog” (1919) by the Ted Lewis Jazz Band. Another contender is “America” (1918), a patriotic piece by the chorus of evangelist Billy Sunday.
Interestingly, some composers of this era wrote music that was supposed to be performed in a way that evoked a fade-out (typically implying motion). A major example is Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” (1914-17), which ends with a repeating, gradually quieter choral phrase and the instruction, “The sound is lost in the distance.”
By the early 1930s longer songs were being put on both sides of records, with the piece fading out at the end of Side One and fading back in at the beginning of Side Two. Records at the time held only about two to five minutes of music per side. The segue allowed for longer songs (such as Count Basie’s “Miss Thing”), symphonies and live concert recordings.
However, shorter songs continued to use the fade-out for unclear reasons—for example, Fred Astaire’s movie theme “Flying Down to Rio” (1933).
Even using fade-out as a segue device doesn’t seem obvious, though we certainly take it for granted today.
As a film buff, I have a gut feeling that movies were an influence here.
Fade-ins and fade-outs are cinematic devices that begin and end scenes—film language that developed at the same time as these early recordings.
The term “fade-out” itself is of cinematic origin, appearing in print around 1918. And jazz, a favorite of early records, was a popular subject of early movies, too.
But I’ll have to fade out without connecting all the dots.
Sept. 15, 2003
By John Ruch
© 2003
Q: What was the first song to fade out at the end?
—Dennis, Columbus, Ohio
A: It is of course impossible to say exactly—there have been too many recordings over the years, and too many of them lost.
More importantly, the exact aesthetic and/or technical reasons for the fade-out are unclear. It wasn’t always a quick song-ender or DJ segue convenience.
Bill Haley’s cover version of “Rocket 88” (1951), often considered the first rock song, fades out to indicate the titular car driving away. There are claims that the Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week” (recorded 1964) was the first song to use the reverse effect—fade-in. (It also fades out.)
Both songs were influential hallmarks of modern music. But both fade-in and fade-out were used together long before to simulate the sound of a marching band passing by the listener.
The earliest such recording anybody could name for me is an 1894 78 rpm record called “The Spirit of ’76,” a narrated musical vignette with martial fife-and-drum that gets louder as it “nears” the listener and quieter as it “moves away.”
The fade-out as a simulation of a moving sound source seems to continue right up to “Rocket 88.” But other examples aren’t so obvious (though fade-out may always imply that the song continues forever and we’re only passing by it for a few minutes).
The oldest true songs with fade-out pointed out to me by 78 record fans bear no obvious relationship to movement. One is “Barkin’ Dog” (1919) by the Ted Lewis Jazz Band. Another contender is “America” (1918), a patriotic piece by the chorus of evangelist Billy Sunday.
Interestingly, some composers of this era wrote music that was supposed to be performed in a way that evoked a fade-out (typically implying motion). A major example is Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” (1914-17), which ends with a repeating, gradually quieter choral phrase and the instruction, “The sound is lost in the distance.”
By the early 1930s longer songs were being put on both sides of records, with the piece fading out at the end of Side One and fading back in at the beginning of Side Two. Records at the time held only about two to five minutes of music per side. The segue allowed for longer songs (such as Count Basie’s “Miss Thing”), symphonies and live concert recordings.
However, shorter songs continued to use the fade-out for unclear reasons—for example, Fred Astaire’s movie theme “Flying Down to Rio” (1933).
Even using fade-out as a segue device doesn’t seem obvious, though we certainly take it for granted today.
As a film buff, I have a gut feeling that movies were an influence here.
Fade-ins and fade-outs are cinematic devices that begin and end scenes—film language that developed at the same time as these early recordings.
The term “fade-out” itself is of cinematic origin, appearing in print around 1918. And jazz, a favorite of early records, was a popular subject of early movies, too.
But I’ll have to fade out without connecting all the dots.
Quadraphonic Sound
Stupid Question ™
Sept. 12, 2002
By John Ruch
© 2002
Q: What ever happened to “quad stereo,” which was supposed to be the sound of the future in the mid-1970s?
—Brad Browning
A: The sad tale of quadraphonic sound is pretty much encapsulated in the Who’s 1973 album “Quadrophenia.” It immortalized the name of the sound system; it was also notorious as the worst-sounding Who album ever.
Quad sound was basically stereo sound times two. Where stereo uses two channels of sound coming from two speakers, quad used four channels of sound coming from four speakers. The idea was to have a speaker in each corner of the room.
When “stereophonic” albums first came out in the 1960s, most were just mono recordings doubled up onto two channels. During quad’s reign, about 1970 to 1975, it was the same: regular stereo albums doubled up onto four channels.
Few bands actually mixed albums with quad in mind, putting individual sounds on each channel; the Who is one notable exception.
But in its day, it was presumed the world would soon go quad as it had gone stereo before. Some radio stations broadcast in quad. Such bands as Pink Floyd and Emerson, Lake and Palmer used quad set-ups live, with four amp stacks.
And yet, quad died young from the same illness that later plagued video cassettes and compact discs: lack of a standard format, expensive equipment, a variety of technical problems (there was perhaps only one system that truly separated the two rear channels) and little noticeable difference from stereo (mostly because the majority of quad albums were just doubled-up stereo).
The real death blow was that the eight-track tape, the medium on which quad worked the best, itself soon died. It was replaced by the common four-track audio cassette, which had too small a bandwidth to handle quad without distortion.
However, reports of quad’s death—and even its birth—are somewhat exaggerated. The idea of multiple-channel sound actually came from movie theater systems, especially Cinerama’s, and quad went back there after disappearing from the record album market.
The biggest quad formats were “matrixed,” meaning that they encoded the four quad channels together on two stereo frequencies, which could then be cut into a regular vinyl record album. The recording could then theoretically be played back in normal stereo (though there were problems with this) or run through a quad decoder that would separate out the four channels again.
Sound engineer Ray Dolby used the QS matrixing system to create multiple-channel movie soundtracks that also could be played in regular theater mono. Used famously on “Star Wars,” Dolby sound inspired a new wave of multi-channel theater sound.
This is turn has inspired multi-speaker “home theater” systems. And that has itself inspired the release of multi-channel albums in new—and, naturally, conflicting—formats. The main contenders are DVD Audio, which supports up to six channels, and Super Audio Compact Disk, which is six channels.
Perhaps consumers will be less likely to reject a sound system that inevitably will be called sexaphonic.
Sept. 12, 2002
By John Ruch
© 2002
Q: What ever happened to “quad stereo,” which was supposed to be the sound of the future in the mid-1970s?
—Brad Browning
A: The sad tale of quadraphonic sound is pretty much encapsulated in the Who’s 1973 album “Quadrophenia.” It immortalized the name of the sound system; it was also notorious as the worst-sounding Who album ever.
Quad sound was basically stereo sound times two. Where stereo uses two channels of sound coming from two speakers, quad used four channels of sound coming from four speakers. The idea was to have a speaker in each corner of the room.
When “stereophonic” albums first came out in the 1960s, most were just mono recordings doubled up onto two channels. During quad’s reign, about 1970 to 1975, it was the same: regular stereo albums doubled up onto four channels.
Few bands actually mixed albums with quad in mind, putting individual sounds on each channel; the Who is one notable exception.
But in its day, it was presumed the world would soon go quad as it had gone stereo before. Some radio stations broadcast in quad. Such bands as Pink Floyd and Emerson, Lake and Palmer used quad set-ups live, with four amp stacks.
And yet, quad died young from the same illness that later plagued video cassettes and compact discs: lack of a standard format, expensive equipment, a variety of technical problems (there was perhaps only one system that truly separated the two rear channels) and little noticeable difference from stereo (mostly because the majority of quad albums were just doubled-up stereo).
The real death blow was that the eight-track tape, the medium on which quad worked the best, itself soon died. It was replaced by the common four-track audio cassette, which had too small a bandwidth to handle quad without distortion.
However, reports of quad’s death—and even its birth—are somewhat exaggerated. The idea of multiple-channel sound actually came from movie theater systems, especially Cinerama’s, and quad went back there after disappearing from the record album market.
The biggest quad formats were “matrixed,” meaning that they encoded the four quad channels together on two stereo frequencies, which could then be cut into a regular vinyl record album. The recording could then theoretically be played back in normal stereo (though there were problems with this) or run through a quad decoder that would separate out the four channels again.
Sound engineer Ray Dolby used the QS matrixing system to create multiple-channel movie soundtracks that also could be played in regular theater mono. Used famously on “Star Wars,” Dolby sound inspired a new wave of multi-channel theater sound.
This is turn has inspired multi-speaker “home theater” systems. And that has itself inspired the release of multi-channel albums in new—and, naturally, conflicting—formats. The main contenders are DVD Audio, which supports up to six channels, and Super Audio Compact Disk, which is six channels.
Perhaps consumers will be less likely to reject a sound system that inevitably will be called sexaphonic.
March 27, 2008
Albums Released On Tuesdays
Stupid Question ™
Nov. 16, 2000
By John Ruch
© 2000
Q: Why are new record albums always released on Tuesdays?
—Yon Chong
A: Armed with this question, I faced an industry that—the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame notwithstanding—is not known for its memory.
Hence, it’s no surprise that the best information I could get was that Tuesday has been the release date since at least the mid-1980s.
Or that the sole comment from a Recording Industry Association of America spokesperson was, “I wonder that myself all the time.”
Not that I didn’t get simple answers. In fact, I got several of them.
Corporate giant Sony Music, for example, told me that the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) was instrumental in setting Tuesday as the release day.
NARM Executive VP Jim Donio, meanwhile, told me he had no idea who picked Tuesday or when they picked it. However, he was sure it was for one reason: marketing. It was good business for consumers to know to look for new records every Tuesday, just like they look for new movies every Friday.
Donio then contradicted himself by adding, “but a lot of the public doesn’t know” that Tuesday’s the release day, and that it’s only starting to become popular, thanks to promos like “Entertainment Tonight”’s “New Record Tuesday” segments.
Would the record industry really stick with a promotional release day that is only starting to be noticed a minimum of 15 years after its inception? I don’t think so.
At least a couple things are certain. Videotapes (and DVDs) are also released on Tuesdays, in imitation of albums, and new books usually come out on Tuesday as well. Also, small, independent record companies don’t always release records on Tuesdays.
This suggests that the Tuesday set-up solves some problem peculiar to mass-marketed records—and solves it so well that other media industries have followed suit.
Sony Music seemed close to the truth when it told me that Monday was the original release day, but that Tuesday was established because records were often delivered late to stores. But why Monday? And why not just ship early?
Employees of Other Music, a New York and Boston record-store chain, said what I think are the magic words: “They just needed to pick a day.” It’s not the day that matters so much as simply choosing one, because choosing one solves a problem.
And what’s the problem? Fairness. If you don’t set a day on which an extremely popular record is released, some stores will get it in the mail earlier that other stores, giving them a competitive edge. Then your big record company might get sued. Today, Tuesday isn’t just a convention, it’s an obligation—stores aren’t allowed to sell new major-label records until Tuesday, even if they get them in the mail early.
Its use as a marketing device is only recent, exemplified by Monday-night-at-midnight sales at which record stores sell hot new albums straight out of boxes—boxes that obviously came in the mail on Monday, or earlier.
Nov. 16, 2000
By John Ruch
© 2000
Q: Why are new record albums always released on Tuesdays?
—Yon Chong
A: Armed with this question, I faced an industry that—the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame notwithstanding—is not known for its memory.
Hence, it’s no surprise that the best information I could get was that Tuesday has been the release date since at least the mid-1980s.
Or that the sole comment from a Recording Industry Association of America spokesperson was, “I wonder that myself all the time.”
Not that I didn’t get simple answers. In fact, I got several of them.
Corporate giant Sony Music, for example, told me that the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) was instrumental in setting Tuesday as the release day.
NARM Executive VP Jim Donio, meanwhile, told me he had no idea who picked Tuesday or when they picked it. However, he was sure it was for one reason: marketing. It was good business for consumers to know to look for new records every Tuesday, just like they look for new movies every Friday.
Donio then contradicted himself by adding, “but a lot of the public doesn’t know” that Tuesday’s the release day, and that it’s only starting to become popular, thanks to promos like “Entertainment Tonight”’s “New Record Tuesday” segments.
Would the record industry really stick with a promotional release day that is only starting to be noticed a minimum of 15 years after its inception? I don’t think so.
At least a couple things are certain. Videotapes (and DVDs) are also released on Tuesdays, in imitation of albums, and new books usually come out on Tuesday as well. Also, small, independent record companies don’t always release records on Tuesdays.
This suggests that the Tuesday set-up solves some problem peculiar to mass-marketed records—and solves it so well that other media industries have followed suit.
Sony Music seemed close to the truth when it told me that Monday was the original release day, but that Tuesday was established because records were often delivered late to stores. But why Monday? And why not just ship early?
Employees of Other Music, a New York and Boston record-store chain, said what I think are the magic words: “They just needed to pick a day.” It’s not the day that matters so much as simply choosing one, because choosing one solves a problem.
And what’s the problem? Fairness. If you don’t set a day on which an extremely popular record is released, some stores will get it in the mail earlier that other stores, giving them a competitive edge. Then your big record company might get sued. Today, Tuesday isn’t just a convention, it’s an obligation—stores aren’t allowed to sell new major-label records until Tuesday, even if they get them in the mail early.
Its use as a marketing device is only recent, exemplified by Monday-night-at-midnight sales at which record stores sell hot new albums straight out of boxes—boxes that obviously came in the mail on Monday, or earlier.