Origin of the song
I wondered how such a prejudiced song could have become the anthem of ice cream and childhood summers. I learned that though Mr. Browne was fairly creative in his lyrics, the song's premise and its melody are nearly as old as America itself. As often happens with matters of race, something that is rather vanilla in origin is coopted and sprinkled with malice along the way.
For his creation, Browne simply used the well-known melody of the early nineteenth-century song "Turkey in the Straw," which dates back to the even older and traditional British song "The (Old) Rose Tree." The tune was brought to America's colonies by Scots-Irish immigrants who settled along the Appalachian Trail and added lyrics that mirrored their new lifestyle.
The first and natural inclination, of course, is to assume that the ice cream truck song is simply paying homage to "Turkey in the Straw," but the melody reached the nation only after it was appropriated by traveling blackface minstrel shows. There is simply no divorcing the song from the dozens of decades it was almost exclusively used for coming up with new ways to ridicule, and profit from, black people.
Blackface minstrels steal the show
In the late 1820s, the music was given new lyrics that dripped with racism and titled "Zip Coon." The blackface character of the same name parodied a free black man attempting to conform to white high society by dressing in fine clothes and using big words. Fifty years later in antebellum America, the character became an archetype of the black urbanite and propelled minstrel shows to the height of their popularity. Zip Coon was the city slicker counterpart to the dimwitted, rural blackface character whose name became infamous in 20th century America — Jim Crow. These two characters would often interact on stage and were the inspiration for the hugely successful Amos 'n' Andy act decades later.
The lyrics of "Zip Coon" follow the namesake through encounters with possums, playing the banjo, and courting a woman whose skin was so black that he calls her "ol Suky blue skin." A century later, it was still celebrated and inspiring America's music. The recognizable melody aside, we've all sung a variation of the lyrics. The chorus goes:
O zip a duden duden duden zip a duden day.
(If this sounds similar to the Academy Award winning "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," it's because that song was derived from this chorus)
At the turn of the twentieth century, one of the nation's most popular collectibles was the coon card — a postcard with racist artwork, such as bug-eyed, clown-faced blacks eating watermelon. These items were essentially the racist version of trading cards and nearly ubiquitous. Browne meshed the theme of the popular coon cards with the familiar melody and voila: "N***** Love a Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!"
The ice cream cross-over happened concurrently. Nineteenth-century ice cream parlors played the popular minstrel songs of the day. After World War II, the advent of the automobile and the ensuing sprawl required parlors to devise a way to take their products to the customers. The ice cream truck was the solution and a music box was installed in them as a way to announce their presence in neighborhoods. Naturally, the traditional minstrel tunes of the previous century were employed to evoke the memorable parlor experience.
And this is the story of why our beloved ice cream truck plays blackface minstrel music that sends kids dashing into homes in a Pavlovian frenzy searching for money to buy a popsicle.
Race, ice cream and America
Here in the nation's capital, the cherry blossoms have come and gone. This means the warm weather will soon bring out the ice cream trucks, and I'll be confronted once again by its inconvenient truth. It's not new knowledge that matters of race permeate the depths of our history and infiltrate the most innocent of experiences, even the simple pleasure of ice cream (Who can forget Eddie Murphy's famous, NSFW routine about the poor, black experience with ice cream trucks?). However, when the reach of racism robs me of fond memories from my childhood, it feels intensely personal again.
Whenever I hear the music now, the antique voice laughing about n******s and watermelon fills my head. I can live with this, but what's to be done on the summer day when my children's eyes light up at the far-off sound of the familiar melody, and they dash in a frenzy towards me for change? Do I empower them with the history of our country or encourage the youthful exuberance induced by the ice cream truck? Is it my responsibility to foul the sweet taste of ice cream with their first taste of racism?
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