Well spotted jonje, but I reckon that given the time this song emerged (1981) it's more likely that Woods was actually inspired by this song, and that this song is actually part of the Tiger Woods success story !
Just12, I see your comment is from 2008, so are you now Just19 ? So, hey nineteen (a great Steely Dan song), do you think this song has anything to do with Aretha Franklin ?
Zappa's song strikes me as clearly lampooning just the sort of racial stereotypes that Amos'n'Andy and culture from that time perpetuated. I think you have the wrong end of the stick Mr Just. Zappa led a racially-integrated band and this song was co-sung by either Ike Willis or Ray White, both of whom are Afro-American. What do you think they thought of it ? Racist ?
It seems to include both an attack on white musicians borrowing the blues and black guys aspiring to be yuppies. The black guy adopts some of the more saccharin aspects of white middle-class culture and the white guy starts to express inverted-snobbery.
It's not taking the mickey out of real Afro-American lifestyles or values, more just a song about fashion victims. It's also very much of it's time, the early '80s, a time when people of all works of life were very much into appearances. Well I guess they still are, but the racial and class roles of the '80s seemed very caricatured, with the benefit of hindsight.
Zappa hated the rise of the yuppies. He hated hipsters who were "slumming". He spent most of his oeuvre critiquing people. He was an equal opportunity misanthropist.
Well spotted jonje, but I reckon that given the time this song emerged (1981) it's more likely that Woods was actually inspired by this song, and that this song is actually part of the Tiger Woods success story !
Just12, I see your comment is from 2008, so are you now Just19 ? So, hey nineteen (a great Steely Dan song), do you think this song has anything to do with Aretha Franklin ?
Zappa's song strikes me as clearly lampooning just the sort of racial stereotypes that Amos'n'Andy and culture from that time perpetuated. I think you have the wrong end of the stick Mr Just. Zappa led a racially-integrated band and this song was co-sung by either Ike Willis or Ray White, both of whom are Afro-American. What do you think they thought of it ? Racist ?
It seems to include both an attack on white musicians borrowing the blues and black guys aspiring to be yuppies. The black guy adopts some of the more saccharin aspects of white middle-class culture and the white guy starts to express inverted-snobbery.
It's not taking the mickey out of real Afro-American lifestyles or values, more just a song about fashion victims. It's also very much of it's time, the early '80s, a time when people of all works of life were very much into appearances. Well I guess they still are, but the racial and class roles of the '80s seemed very caricatured, with the benefit of hindsight.
Zappa hated the rise of the yuppies. He hated hipsters who were "slumming". He spent most of his oeuvre critiquing people. He was an equal opportunity misanthropist.