Originally published at: Little Richard documentary looks at the life and career of the Black queer rock 'n' roll icon | Boing Boing
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In the annals of “original” lyrics toned down for mass consumption,
Tutti Frutti, good booty
If it don’t fit, don’t force it
You can grease it, make it easy
is unlikely to be beaten.
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Is this real? I am going to have to look it up later.
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I love Little Richard’s music and his place as a queer icon. I choose to think of those painful clips of him towards the end of his life appearing on those evangelical sideshows as leftover PTSD from growing up in a Pentecostal household. People are complicated and the fear of knowing your life is coming to an end (he already had health problems when he made those appearances) has frightened many people into bad territory. I can forgive him of that and I hope it brought him whatever peace he needed at the time.
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Oh yeah. Richard was performing that version in nightclubs, but they weren’t going to put that on the radio. That’s why the recorded version has nonsense lyrics like " Whop bop b-luma b-lop bam bom."
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I looked it up! Neat!
I know there were very dirty and raunchy songs recorded in in the decades leading up to Little Richard, and even more that were just played live. So it’s nothing new. Just surprised about it being such a well known song with original dirty lyrics. Like you said, they were never on the radio.
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Of course Little Richard was great , but I hope the documentary at least mentions a slightly similar performer Esquerita that I think was the real pioneer.
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Wait what? TIL a new thing about Little Richard that should have been obvious the whole time…
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He is buried in a cemetery affiliated with Oakwood University here in Huntsville AL.
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