Mediodating of "boody/booty"

[Wilson Gray]

According to the record itself, "The boodie green" [is] "the craziest dance
that you've ever seen," involving the putting of one's hand on one's hip and
letting one's backbone slip, which is one of  several methods whose actions
necessarily result in the shaking of one's boody. As for the green part, a
WAG is that Bradshaw and his co-authors simply couldn't come up with a
better rhyme.

In general, IMO, song titles are simply pulled out of the composer's ass. In
some cases, the producer will supply the title. That's how Jimmy Reed's
"Baby, Why You Want To Let Go?" came to be released under the title, "Baby,
What You Want Me To Do?" Other times, for reasons known only to himself and
God, the producer will delete the part of the song that gives the title
meaning. An egregious example is chris Kenner's "The Land of a Thousand
Dances," which phrase does not occur in the song as released. The song
originally opened with an intro something like the following:

Call:                       Children, I'm going to take you!
Response-cum-call: Where're you going to take us?
Response:               I'm going to take you
                              To that land,
                              The Land of a Thousand Dances!

Sometimes, a dance known as "X" in one place will be known as "Y" elsewhere.
The singers of "The Slop," not to be conufsed with the sloop, actually state
on their recordingthat this is the same dance as the one known as the scotch
elsewhere. Another WAG is that the singers feared that the song might not
sell among those who knew the dance by the latter name, if they didn't
realize that the two dances were the same. That's not likely, though. It's
the rhythm that tells you what dance goes with a given piece of music, not
the title of the record.

Of course, the above is so old-school as to approach follkloric. None of it
is relevant WRT to hip-hop and rap. It's a bit relevant for funk.
P[arliament]-Funk[adelic], under the name "The Parliaments," recorded a
masterpiece of old-school R&B, "Testify," in the '60's. In the '70's, under
their current name, they released "Tear The Roof Off The Mother[f]ucker,"
whose rhythym helped to popularize a dance called "the bump."

On 1/14/06, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Mediodating of "boody/booty"
>
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>
> But what's *that* mean ?  Is it an Afro-Martian song ?
>
>   JL
>
> Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Mediodating of "boody/booty"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> HDAS lacks a cite for this between 1928 and 1959
>
> Title of phonograph record:
>
> "The Boodie[sic] Green," written by Myron Bradshaw et al., recorded
> by [Myron] "Tiny" Bradshaw and his Band
>
> Released on the "King" record label in 1949
>
> -Wilson Gray
>
>
>
>
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