Remember The Good Ol' Days?

Once upon a time in a magical place called "America" there lived a people that were never, ever sad.  Everyone had jobs.  Everyone went to church.  There were no drugs.  You waited to have sex until after you were married.  Parents never did inappropriate things with their children.  Everyone loved everyone else...unless they were commies.

Then they took prayer out of school and the country went to hell.

That's pretty much the conservative line - things USED to be better so let's do what we did back then.

Here's a good reason not to - domestic violence was such a non-issue they wrote novelty songs about it that charted in the top 10.

One year, I wanted to do a Halloween show that featured not "scary" songs, but songs that actually frightened me.  This song was the top of the list.  The subject matter (and, yes, I realized the 1948 version of what's acceptable differs from the 2009 version) is bad enough.  The song extols the virtue of beating the living hell out of your daughter when she disobeys you. Family values, I guess.  What pushes it over the edge into unmitigated nightmarish sadism is the glee and jauntiness the beating engenders.  Right off the bat, Arthur Godfrey chuckles disturbingly as the scene is painted with a girl lying on the floor trying to fend of blows. That and the HILARIOUS slapstick suggesting that Arthur Godfrey is not screwing around here.  There will be welts and bruises.

It gets worse, though.  The instrumental break with it's jokey, circus calliope conjures up the scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex and his droogs beat and rape their victim while jauntily bellowing Singing In The Rain.  Godfrey and his band of droogs square dance around their's as he happily calls out "dosey-doe".

The whole horrible thing winds up in almost Grand Guignol fashion with the participants executing loud, sloppy close harmony while Godfrey (fake) laughs so hard that he can't even sing.  I'd be curious to know if there was a version where the girl they beat actually screamed and calmer heads prevailed.

It's almost the perfect song for a man who fired Julius LaRosa without notice on live TV.

I posted this song on my blog a couple of years back and got this comment from a woman in Montana

I listened to this on 78s in the ’50s at home and could only remember the chorus. HOLY CATZ!It’s as appalling as I remembered!

We had a short email correspondance about the song.  "It was that song," she wrote, "that convinced me to get the hell out of Montana.  Nobody there had a problem with it."

Slap 'Er Down Again, Pa (mp3s)

Comments

[M Munro]

Which other songs did you compile that really frightened you?

[cynical hater]

There is a song that I found too really scary maybe because it is so realistic..those days
Dave he is dead
I just hope that the person who did it was not cynically actor..that happens too

[Ray Zinnbrann]

Oh my god, I can't believe this song has been posted.

One WFMU DJ I can tell you also had a bit of a perverse obsession with this song was none other than the late, great Mr. Terry "TKF" Folger. In fact, he once covered this song live at a 1989 gig at ABC No Rio with his band Van Gelder -- who I played drums for at the time. And I still have the live recording of our version of it. The intro is priceless -- all our friends in the crowd can be heard going off about how great we are, to which Terry replies, "Don't speak too soon -- you won't be thinking like that after you hear this next song!" and then leads us into "Slap 'er Down." It really ought to be posted. I'll have to rip it for you, if you're interested...

[Paul]

I did a podcast of it, if you're interested - http://hbeeinc.com/blog/?p=554. The playlist:
Johnny Rebel - Some Niggers Never Die
Clem Snide - The Ballad of David Icke
Joe Aufricht - Horny With A Chick

Arthur Godfrey - Slap ‘Er Down Again, Pa
Hasil Adkins - I Need Your Head
Unknown - Ha Ha The Clown

Unknown - Demonic Possession In Church
Jandek - You Painted Your Teeth
William Shatner - Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
The Blues Brothers - Guilty

Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy Jr.

Ray - I would LOVE to hear a cover of it! Thanks!

[trav]

wow, there really isn't much difference between extreme southern religious morals and the same kind of daughter shaming violence and murder in extreme islam...is there? this song is an atrocious gem...

[Paul]

There's just enough space between the two of them to slip a page of Leviticus through. :-)

[Listener Greg G.]

> wow, there really isn't much difference between extreme southern religious morals and the same kind of daughter shaming violence and murder in extreme islam

Extreme southern religious morals? Arthur Godfrey was a NYC native.

[trav]

yeah i know, but the song seems like a southern good ol' boy song...am i wrong? either that or the deep woods of any place....being a georgia native i tend to forget that such moral views do escape the south, i probably shouldn't have dumped the word southern in there, i just say what i know.

[K.]

Could just as easily be turn of the century appalachia. We got rednecks too, Trav, like my gun nut brother for example (grin). I'm picturing Ma in a gingham burka and Pa doing the honor killin' in his patched levis. What an awesome song! A mashup with islamic propaganda would rock the house. Thanks, HBee.

[King Daevid MacKenzie]

...by the way. Godfrey didn't fire La Rosa on live TV (it was on radio) and the firing wasn't unexpected, regardless of what La Rosa claims. La Rosa was trying to get out of his contract and Godfrey went to CBS network president Frank Stanton for advice, to which Stanton said, "since you hired him on-the-air, fire him on-the-air!" Godfrey clearly got the bum rap in that incident...

[alex]

he seems like such a fun dad in the glass bottom boat.

[misc]

Those days were great! Unless you were, y'know, black. Or Jewish. Or gay. Or poor. Or female. But if you were a heterosexual Christian white middle-class male, you were IN.

[Greg]

If that woman was so upset by Montana's indifference towards casual misogyny and violence in the 1950s I wonder what she thinks of the national popularity of hip-hop and much internet porn today. Does she feel like killing herself every time she hears a young person listening to their "women-hating rap music" or did she just realize that it's no big deal and it was time to stop being a stick in the mud about lyrics like that?

[random chocoholic]

there is a song, from this year or something that just creeps me out. it is called 'Stan' by eminem it is FREAKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!