Hey, there! Log in / Register
Cambridge breakfast place removes drink owners say they didn't realize referred to lynchings
By adamg on Tue, 02/10/2015 - 10:22pm
The Friendly Toast apologizes for a drink called Strange Fruit after Cambridge Day detailed Billie Holiday's use of the name for a song about lynchings in the South.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
☐
Listening to Billie in her later, skag-ruined voice period
always breaks my heart. Try this one instead, from her prime.
I'm inclined to believe them. Much of the objection to
Beck's winning a Grammy over Beyoncé came from kids who have no idea who he is. Given the age of the Toast's staff and core demographic, I suspect they have never heard the Siouxsie and the Banshees cover, let alone the essential Billie Holiday version. And as much as I love the latter, it was years after I first heard it before I understood the lyrics.
I was a jazz-obsessed teen nerd
so I can't remember NOT knowing that song backwards and forwards, but even then it would've been a little...um, weird. I can't imagine that the staff or clientele of the Friendly Toast being jazz savvy-more like that scene in Clueless where the guy asks Cher if she likes Billie Holiday and she sighs "I love him."
I am well aware of the song
I am well aware of the song and its context and I've eaten there like 20 times and somehow never noticed this ridiculous drink on the menu. I can't believe no one else I was with did either.
Lyrics
Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
Lyrics are hard. I remember a college freshman
classmate of mine reacting with consternation to my playing "Are You Experienced?" on my dorm-room stereo, saying, "Isn't Jimi Hendrix gay?", clearly something he felt was unacceptable in terms of which artists one appreciates.
"What the hell are you talking about?", I responded.
He cited the lyrics to "Purple Haze": "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy!"
I roared and set him straight, so to speak.(Didn't know it at the time, but in retrospect, the better rejoinder would have been, "Got some bad news for you about Jimmy Page, bro.")
A few years later, I about pissed myself upon finding maybe the Internet's first misheard-lyrics website, kissthisguy.com, still going strong to this day.
Much of the objection to Beyonce being robbed at the Grammies
...actually comes from people who first look at Beyonce releasing a best-selling album with no pre-announcement, no run-up, music videos for every song - this being her second/third (depending on how you count it) album released in as many years, she's one of the most (if not the most) prolific female singers in the US despite the deadly trifecta of being "not young" "not white" and "not pop" that should spell mainstream irrelevancy in this godforsaken country.
Then these same people look at "white guy with a guitar who's done nothing for six years and hasn't been relevant since the 90s," whose album didn't gross nearly as much, didn't have nearly as widespread reception, and whose claims to that Grammy are tenuous at best and they wonder who the hell this guy is and who he paid off.
Hell, take the racism out of it. Take the sexism out of it. Pretend you've got two white guys - one with a tepid album that is his first in six years (but who was relevant twenty, maybe even fifteen years ago), and the other who has consistently dominated the charts and released blockbuster after blockbuster over that same period (and who nobody can and will deny is relevant right now). Why the fuck would you give the award to white guy A when every single metric except for MAYBE "I think his music sounds better" is either identical or solidly in favor of white guy B?
And you're going to tell me I'm just mad because I'm a "kid who has no idea who Beck is?" You're going to sit here and pull the hipster douchebag 'well maybe you need a better EDUCATION in MUSIC HISTORY and then you'd GET IT' card out on me? I know full well who Beck is and was and I'm pissed as hell as someone who frankly couldn't give a shit about Beyonce's music.
FUCK YOU. Beyonce was robbed by the reanimated corpse of the 90s, and I grew up in the fucking 90s.
Keep your arms straight out
as the guys in the white jackets from McLean try to throw the net over you. It will buy you a few more minutes.
Hey! Guess what?!
Beyonce and her over produced garbage sucks. Anyone, and I mean anyone who uses auto-tune is talentless.
dvdoff, baby
The only thing that matters is the money.
You're right in that her music is kind of terrible. Frankly, so is Beck's.
That doesn't matter. What matters is gross revenue, net revenue, public reception, and ratings.
If 500,000 people listen to Beck and become diehard fans, but 25,000,000 listen to and are lukewarm fans of Beyonce, you know who is supposed to win that award?
I'll give you a hint: it's the person reaching 25,000,000 people and not the guy with an audience of 2% of that.
Beyonce should have won the damn award, and I say that as someone who - again - doesn't even like Beyonce's music.
Please
Then why even have the award ceremony - just give it to the person who sold the most records. The Oscar winners are usually awesome movies - and rarely the one with the biggest box office (so Frozen should be best picture?).
I am no expert in music - but the people that decide these things are. It's about the art, not the $$$. Absolutely subjective, but I'll assume the people making that decision are a bit more knowledgeable than any Uhub commenter on this topic.
And that's from someone who DOES like a lot of Beyoncé's music.
Making music is about using
Making music is about using all the tools available to create an interesting musical experience. Some musical instruments are easier to play than others, and some kinds of songs are easier to sing than others, but what matters is not how easy or how hard it is to do, but what the end result is. Autotune can certainly be used as a crutch, but it's a perfectly valid musical choice.
At least since the Beatles, popular music has been made in the studio. That's just how the genre works. Autotune is a fine addition to the standard set of tools.
The Beatles double-tracked
The Beatles double-tracked their vocals to make them sound better. I'm sure there were many older singers and music fans who thought this was an unacceptable technological "cheat".
Nice try...
but the members of the Beatles wrote,produced and performed their own music. They didn't have teams of producers and outside songwriters.armed with the latest software to cover up the fact that they couldn't sing, like so many do today. Just check some of those videos of today's "singers" being exposed at live events.
Whatever, old man. Tie an
Whatever, old man. Tie an onion to your belt, as Swirly would say. I'm sure you're old enough to remember how all rock & roll was derided as trash, noise and jungle music by those with "good taste", regardless of whether the performers wrote or sang their own material or not.
"I used to be with it, until they changed what it was. Now what I am with isn't it and what is it seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you!"
Anyone, and I mean anyone who
Thank goodness we have limo drivers around to tell us which performing artists are worth enjoying and which aren't.
Hey!
You're welcome! Service is my motto! Now enjoy this Marvin Gaye isolated vocal track, sans auto-tune...
http://www.purpleclover.com/life-reimagined/2883-marvin-gayes-isolated-v...
Umm
I won't comment as to who was robbed but Beyonce is absolutely pop, what are you talking about?
And how many Grammies has she won? I'm pretty sure her presence is well acknowledged over the years, and maybe there are gains to spreading out the attention.
Robbed?
Because she gets nominated and doesn't win?
Seriously?
So
"Best Album" should be renamed "album that sells the most copies"?
Hello?
This is the Grammies.
Also, it may astonish you to discover that different people like different kinds of music, and Beyonce's album received excellent reviews from the critics in addition to selling 10x more copies than Beck's.
Well this just proved my
Well this just proved my theory Kanye West is an avid Universal Hub reader! Knew it!
I don't have a dog in this fight
I never watch the Grammies, and think Beck's new album is a shoddy, syrupy sequel to the far superior Sea Change.
But it is fun to watch people foam over about it. Absolutely hilarious that anyone gives so much of a damn as to fly right off the rails. Deep breaths, son!
I wonder how many of the
I wonder how many of the people (here and on Facebook) who are ragging on Beyonce and Kanye have actually listened to either of the albums involved.
Beyonce wasn't Robbed
Beck writes all his own stuff...plays tons of instruments....can, and does, produce. Beyonce is a great PERFORMER, that's true. One of the best. But as a musical artist? She has a truckload of song writers who write her tunes...producers who put it all together for her...and, to my knowledge, doesn't play one single instrument. From a musical standpoint? No contest.
Robbery? Not if they're handing out the cash
To understand why Beck won, you have to understand why he (and Eminem and Radiohead) lost to Steely Dan or why Metallica (and Jane's Addiction and AC/DC) lost to Jethro Tull.
When the voters vote, they have to choose one winner. Anyone who wanted to vote for Beck did. Anyone who wanted to vote for Beyonce might have also wanted to vote for Pharrell, Sam Smith, or Ed Sheeran. They were all talented and put out great albums of the same genre as Beyonce. Beck put out something more rock than pop. He captured the rock voters, probably some of the jazz voters, while Beyonce, Pharrell, Smith, and Sheeran all split the pop voters.
You want it to be more fair? Require nominations to be one from each genre or at least two from any given genre or use a condorcet method where all comparisons are made and people rank their top three or four albums so the winner becomes the person who did better against all competitors and not just had the most unique voting bloc.
But this is where we're at and it'll continue. Some day Beyonce will get album of the year and some young newcomer will get shafted and we can all complain about that too and continue to give the Grammys more attention than they deserve.
Beyoncé is not pop?
Beyoncé is not pop?
But if they just gave the
But if they just gave the Grammy to whoever had the best publicity and promotion machine, then we'd never heard from young upstart artists like Beyonce who the white establishment would love to silence.
Nina Simone
Nina Simone also did a cover.
Lynching was the ONLY reference I ever had for strange fruit.
But not surprise by the lack of awareness because lynching is a part of our history that is extremely painful to remember/acknowledge.
Now you've done it, Adam
Cue the white people telling black people what they're allowed to be offended by in... 3... 2... 1...
One difference here is that the Toast got told, and
they responded appropriately. The folks at Somerville's Bloc 11 might be forgiven for not initially understanding the offensiveness of the name, but they stuck by it even after it was explained to them.
Exactly!
They responded APPROPRIATELY.
Oh please
Bloc 11? That isn't specific to anything but their designation of place in the property atlas for Somerville. That's what they pay taxes on.
Have you complained about Building 19? Lots of death camps had buildings numbered 19, too.
It isn't specific to death camps, either. Lots of military bases and other sorts of compounds still have Block 11, etc. Try again.
You aren't the tedious yelper who wouldn't let it go after it was explained to him or her, are you?
Et Pourquoi Pas?
They thought that they were alone in their knowledge of Something Special.
http://youtu.be/uxugaMpt1vU
That's the problem with the modern world: not enough
ill-fitting powder-blue rental tuxedos.
Thanks for the smile, be. I'd forgotten about that one.
What was in the drink?
Couldn't they just rename the drink without losing the recipe?
What is it exactly?... What ingredients?...
What is it exactly?... What ingredients?...
PLEASE PROVIDE IN PLAIN ASCII FORMAT
RECIPE FOR DRINK FORMERLY BEARING RACIST NAME
SERVED AT FRIENDLY TOAST LLC ESTABLISHMENT
LOCATED AT ONE KENDALL SQUARE CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS USA EARTH
On paper lyrics are easy to
On paper lyrics are easy to see but sometimes people miss the lyrics of the song because of the overall melody. Look at White Wedding by Billy idol or that Sting stalking song. Both are very popular wedding songs but one is a song about not getting married and the other is his stalking a woman.
They made a mistake, it came down. It should have come down a little quicker after the first objection. I mean just google it, there is no real confusion as to what it really is. It still came down fairly quickly and it was ignorance not mallace.
Now lets talk about this dub stepped version of Hanging Tree by Jennifer Lawrence on the radio. WTF
TMBG also
My wife loved the image of TMBG's song Twisting in the Wind, thinking about people dancing on the playa. Until I told her what the phrase was referring to.
Black and Tan
In the almost same ilk, you get, or should get, a dirty look from a Boston bartender when you order a Black and Tan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_and_Tans
"Should"? No - the drink name came first...
...by at least a half century. And the common use of the phrase to describe coat coloration of animals is even older. (And here in America, the jazz-age reference to the famous Duke Ellington composition is even more resonant).
The infamous constabulary force were nicknamed after dogs, not the other way around. Appropriation of a widely-used phrase by a relatively small group to refer to an even smaller group (a century gone now) doesn't really have the weight of moral (or even cultural) primacy.
So What?
Are you going to name a drink after the Klan? That's a small group that caused terror. As my antecedents would say, who were around when these thugs rolled through Ireland, Piss Off.
Missing the point
Naming a drink after the kkk = the bad meaning came first. Contrarily, that circa 1920-22 thugforce in Ireland was nicknamed with a phrase that had been used to refer to dogs (and drinks) for generations beforehand.
So, piss right back off, you goofball.
Name Calling
You get big boy points for that.
Things not to do...
...start a mudfight and then whine that you got dirty. That's you, John C.
oh, and that golliwog statue?
next visit to the Toast, take a look up at all the tchotchkes. There's a painted golliwog, green, who is grinning down on your breakfast. That's not even lawn jockey level racial iconography, but a deeply messed up stereotype that has no place with the other "ironic" items.
And that's a root of the problem. When the atmosphere (food and decor) is steeped in irony, these places of racial ignorance become all the more painful.
Hmm
I'm a non-white guy that used to frequent the Friendly Toast. Used to...until I noticed that on multiple occasions, service, relative to the tables around me, was a little slower, a little abrupt and generally unfriendly.
Everyone that worked there looked 'cool' and 'hip,' but I started to get a bad vibe from that place. Call me a cynic, but I won't be surprised to hear that someone knowingly put that drink on the menu...
...seriously? Come on. Toast
...seriously? Come on. Toast removed the drink from the menu.
If it makes you feel better I
If it makes you feel better I'm white and get consistently terrible service there.
So did I.
That's why I stopped going years ago--three strikes and you're out unless your food is crazy good which it's not. Same story albeit in a slightly different way at Hungry Mother--terrific food but snotty, pretentious service and attitude. There are too many other great options in that neighborhood now to stick around to be treated poorly.