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Notes from a Prudent Man proudly presents,

Rock and Roll's Top Five Odes to Black Women:

Preface - There have been countless mediocre but more direct attempts to celebrate black women in Rock and Roll's long history (like Island Girl by Elton John and Black Pearl by Bryan Adams), but to earn a spot my top 5, it must be a truly great song.

So without further interruption, Notes from a Prudent Man brings you, Rock and Roll's Top Five Odes to Black Women:

5. Angel of Harlem - (U2) On the surface this may sound like a tribute to a specific black woman (Billie Holliday) but underneath it's Bono's contribution to discrediting the widely held perception that all Irishmen are all lazy, hot-tempered, racist, drunken, undersexed, obnoxious-even-when-sober, uneducated heathens by showing that not only can an Irishman write a beautiful song, and not only can an Irishman cherish the memory of a talented black woman, but that he -- Bono himself -- lusts after all beautiful black women, so they should accept Angel of Harlem as an overture and approach him freely.

4. Hungry Like the Wolf - (Duran Duran) The lyrics do not explicitly address the race of woman on whom the songwriter seeks to perform cunnilingus, but the video makes it very clear. In my humble opinion, this video was a seminal step---if not THE seminal step---in interracial sexual relations for multiple generations.

3. Black Betty - (Ram Jam) This song is a cover, and the original meaning of the term Black Betty is heavily disputed (from a musket, to a bottle of whiskey, to a whip, to a paddy wagon), but Ram Jam's version is clearly about a black woman:

She's from Birmingham (Bam-ba-Lam)
Way down in Alabam' (Bam-ba-Lam)
Well, she's shakin' that thing (Bam-ba-Lam)
Boy, she makes me sing (Bam-ba-Lam)

Don't overlook "she makes me sing" as a cliche. What can make you burst into song? The answer for most men is, "Maybe a hot shower and an empty apartment" or "Maybe a few whiskeys and a karaoke machine." But the answer for Ram Jam is, "A pulchritudinous black woman shaking her asshole."

2. Brown Sugar - (Rolling Stones) What starts as a crude lesson on the sexual history of black women in America from the viewpoint of their rapists, turns into an uplifting story of perseverance culminating with a black woman triumphantly having consensual sex with Jagger himself. After the history lesson, Mick elevates the disquisition by demonstrating his reverence for black women through rhetorical questioning like, "How come you dance so good?" and "How come you taste so good?" And because answering such questions would require no less than solving the mysteries of life itself, Mick simply declares that it's "Just like a black girl should."

1. Cinnamon Girl - (Crazyhorse) The lyrics are vague, but in addition to the title, the plea to his father at the end proves the song is meant to express his adoration for a black woman:

Pa send me money now,
I'm gonna make it somehow,
I need another chance,
you see your baby loves to dance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is clearly a reference to Neil's lovechild who, like his black mother, also loves to dance. (See songs #2 and #3 for further insight into the white man's perceptions of a black woman's proclivity for dancing.) The verse is also an attempt at directing awareness to the overly harsh punishment of being cut off from all parental financial support that was being bravely faced by many young white men stricken with the proverbial taste for chocolate (if I may be so bold) in the late '60's and early '70's.

In sum: If you've ever wanted to know what Rock and Roll is all about, then you should watch this live performance of Cinnamon Girl.


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Appendix: Notable stuff I came across on the youtube sidebar today:

- Susana Hofs cover of Feel Like Makin Love: I didn't care for the Bangles when I was a kid, but that's probably because I assumed they were poppy like the Go-Go's. Had an 11 year-old me known about Hofs' stripper-esque performances, who knows how my masturbatory life may have been altered. What does her rabbi say when she walks into temple for the first time after this performance? The most popular comment to this video is, "If there is reincarnation, I wanna come back as her Mic stand."

(And what is that growling sound effect at 1:39 after the first "Feel like mae - kin - love - to - you"?) (And note the guitar player's face at 2:13)

(And note the change in Youtube's sidebar suggesting style. When watching a music video in past years, the sidebar would only show other versions of the same song, and if other versions didn't exist, it would show different songs by the artist, but now Youtube wants us to branch out. Prior to this suggestion, at no point today had I watched any video by Hofs or the Bangles or Bad Company, or any version of Feel Like Makin Love. [But I did subsequently watch Kid Rock's cover of Feel Like Makin Love -- which might be worth watching only for how hard his drummer rocks {or for fans of the erotic, maybe for the airplane bathroom threesome at end in which Rock plays the male lead.}])

- Type O Negative's cover of Cinnamon Girl: Painful for the most part, but has it's moments. Many commenters definitively state that this version is better than the original -- which I suppose is as convincing a demonstration as any that the inability to be objectively judged is what makes something a work of art. The lead singer is an interesting character (may he rest in peace) and worth reading about if you're desperate.

- After considering using the term "nubian princess" in this entry, I realized I didn't know anything about Nubia, so I googled it (it's a region in East Africa.) But Google's first hit for "nubian princess" was a real prostitute's website. Well, maybe I shouldn't say "prostitute" because according to her site, her fees are for her "time, travel, modeling, and pleasurable conversation." She emphasizes that her "companionship" is free. 

Is this really all it takes to circumvent prostitution laws? If I was a pimp and wanted to attract the biggest spenders, I'd make all my prostitutes become licensed therapists, thereby making the "paying for conversation" defense --- if not air-tight, at least --- much tighter.

- I acknowledge that Rock and Roll purists may question my inclusion of Duran Duran, but I stand behind it. Rock and Roll is broad; some argue it's a state of mind. Here's Hungry Like the Wolf live (this video probably won't change many minds, but it'll reinforce the beliefs of those who were already on my side.) 

Many will argue that in terms of black/white sexual relations, the release date for the Hungry Like the Wolf video is akin to the birth of Christ.

- Here is another verse from Black Betty: 

She really gets me high (bam-A-lam)
You know that's no lie (bam-A-lam)
She's so rock steady (bam-A-lam)
And she's always ready (bam-A-lam)

I have heard -- strictly anecdotally -- that black men have shorter refractory periods than their white counterparts, and perhaps Ram Jam is hinting that black women share a similar level of satiability

- The number of Do No Harm trailers I've seen on YouTube tonight while writing this: at least 5 

- The number of Do No Harm episodes I expect will air before it gets cancelled: no more than 5

- Speaking of the Do No Harm trailers, it plays a cover of The Real Me (link is to the original.) It's weird, but I don't mind when a great song is used to promote a mediocre product: this is the ultimate example of that for me (here's the song alone) The commercial promotes the song, and I don't blame a band like The New Pornographer's for selling, I can't imagine the difficulty of earning a living as a musician these days.

(Like A Rock might be a prime example of this.) (Here's the song alone.)

- For the sake of whatever you believe in, watch this live performance of Cinnamon Girl again. Neil Young couldn't look any worse -- he's overweight, ugly by almost any standard, dressed more like a bum than a rockstar, has the haircut of an 65 year-old woman, and he couldn't be much clumsier, but look at his effect on those women. And it cuts even deeper when you realize there's not a single black woman in the audience --- which is the battle Neil is desperately fighting by continuing to perform this song. (And a battle that is won 12 years later when Hungry Like the Wolf plays on televisions around the world.)