Althouse: "When I was in my teens, I was in The Boys’ Brigade, a semi-military organization. We had a bugle band, and I used to play the snare."

March 17, 2019

"When I was in my teens, I was in The Boys’ Brigade, a semi-military organization. We had a bugle band, and I used to play the snare."

"That’s how I got into playing drums. I used to like that sort of snare style, and I think I brought some of that into The Yardbirds, with 'I’m a Man,' a bit of a marching thing. But I also mixed it up with jazz. There was a military/jazz element."

Said Jim McCarty, who was the drummer in The Yardbirds.

I've listened to The Yardbirds "I'm a Man" hundreds of times, mostly half a century ago, but I've never thought of it as military....

Does it change the meaning, to think about it that way — as a military march? Lyrics here, if you want to analyze. The most notable lyric, heard over and over is: "Man, I spell M-A-N, man/I'm a man."

41 comments:

rhhardin said...: I was a trombone player, so always led a column in the band. I had to learn the routines better than the lesser marchers behind me.

I switched to baritone though because I liked the keying. It was much faster and you could do trills.

I discovered French horn is the same length as the trombone and baritone, and so had the same notes, just with a much smaller mouthpiece so you could reach all those harmonics without strain.

Then I took up classical guitar and that was that.

It had no professional effect except I got a PDP11/40 at work to play multi-voice music using a graphics system D/A converter and the machine's interrupt structure. A couple of Brandeburg concertos, for instance, from the Max Reger piano reduction.

If you put in too many voices, it couldn't complete the assignments in the interrupt time and the whole pitch dropped a couple of tones and stopped changing, there being no time computer left to go on to the next measure. I think it was about seven voices it could handle.; 3/17/19, 7:52 AM
h said...: It's the drumming style that is military -- snare drum and base drum -- as opposed to more standard rock or blues drumming style in which the constant beat is on a cymbal. Like this version (Mannish Boy) by Muddy Waters.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrC3RtjQ45clEYAm1UPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=Muddy+Waters+I%27m+a+Man&fr=yhs-Lkry-SF01&hspart=Lkry&hsimp=yhs-SF01#id=34&vid=79e9c4c2c945f262026c76e607fbe759&action=view; 3/17/19, 7:59 AM
Ralph L said...: Man, that would sound better with hallucinogens. I've heard a lot of 60's music, usually a few years late, but I've never heard that one or seen a guitar played with a bow. Love all the hippie clothes in the audience.; 3/17/19, 8:02 AM
Fernandinande said...: Just to clarify, "I'm a man" was written by Bo Diddly. The Yardbirds' drum part sounds similar to Diddly's original, but faster.; 3/17/19, 8:09 AM
Wince said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/17/19, 8:14 AM
Wince said...: And one can't help asking oneself (can one?):

Why is this indigenous, crude, powerful, black American music invariably best interpreted by young long-haired British homosexuals?; 3/17/19, 8:17 AM
Wilbur said...: I most like the Muddy Waters version with Johnny Winters on board.; 3/17/19, 8:17 AM
Fernandinande said...: I most like the Muddy Waters version with Johnny Winters on board.

That would be "Mannish Boy".; 3/17/19, 8:26 AM
madAsHell said...: but I've never thought of it as military....

I've always heard that song as a call to arms. Well......short arms!!; 3/17/19, 8:28 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Just to clarify, "I'm a man" was written by Bo Diddly. The Yardbirds' drum part sounds similar to Diddly's original, but faster."

I didn't mean to imply that they wrote the old song.

I originally had an extra part to this post about the Muddy Waters song ("Mannish Boy"). I re-watched "The Last Waltz" recently and it has a performance by Waters of that song and I really hated it. It's largely the same song — with the repeated spelling of the word "man."

Talk about toxic masculinity!; 3/17/19, 8:33 AM
madAsHell said...: If you put in too many voices, it couldn't complete the assignments in the interrupt time and the whole pitch dropped a couple of tones and stopped changing, there being no time computer left to go on to the next measure. I think it was about seven voices it could handle.

Why weren't you fired??; 3/17/19, 8:35 AM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: Talk about cultural appropriation. The Yardbirds are white privilege. The stole a black man's song. That is white supremacy.

The Yardbirds need to be banished to the ash heap of history.; 3/17/19, 8:54 AM
Fernandinande said...: I didn't mean to imply that they wrote the old song.

I missed the correct credit on the right side of the lyrics page.

Talk about toxic masculinity!

No, I don't think so. Here are the lyrics, which portion is toxic?"

"Back Door Man" is a better song with funnier bragging lyrics, and sounds kinda scary when Chester Burnett sings it.

"They, take me to the doctor, shot full o' holes
Nurse cryin', please save the soul
Killed[?] him for murder, first degree
Judge's wife cryin', let the man go free.

Stand out there, cop's wife cried
Don't take him down, rather be dead
Six feets in the ground
When you come home you can eat, pork and beans
I eats mo' chicken, any man seen."

Bragging about sex is not rare in old blues songs.; 3/17/19, 8:55 AM
Dad29 said...: Note that the FIRST beat of a measure is emphasized in that video, which is 'military' as opposed to the standard rock-n-roll emphasis on the 2nd and 4th beats.

Granted the emphasis is 'slight,' but it's there.; 3/17/19, 9:15 AM
stevew said...: The drum part makes me think of a march, but I don't think I would have considered it military if you hadn't mentioned it.

Funny to me is that I do not recall ever hearing this song, and I've heard a lot of Yardbirds music, being just a bit younger than you. When I think of a song titled "I'm a Man" I think of the Stevie Winwood song from his time with The Spencer Davis Group; also performed by Chicago (which is where I first heard it).; 3/17/19, 9:17 AM
John henry said...: Not to forget Jimmy Smith's I'm a hoochie coochi man.

Similar style and theme.

I worry about our education system today. Who's gonna teach the children about Bo Diddly?

John Henry; 3/17/19, 9:18 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Somebody transcribe the version Waters sang in "The Last Waltz." It's very rape-y.; 3/17/19, 9:25 AM
Ann Althouse said...: And very proud of rape-i-ness.; 3/17/19, 9:26 AM
rhhardin said...: Rapey song

Mr. Kliban (pronounced KLEE-ban) burst into publishing and best-seller prominence in 1975 with his first book, ''Cat,'' which started introducing his populace of cats wearing oversized tennis shoes; drunken-looking cats wearing paper hats; ''Momcat,'' who packed her kitten in a kangaroo-type pouch, and a guitar-strumming cat singing: ''Love to eat them mousies,/Mousies what I love to eat./Bite they little heads off . . ./Nibble on they tiny feet.''

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/08/14/obituaries/b-kliban-55-a-cartoonist-who-drew-zany-cats.html; 3/17/19, 9:33 AM
Wilbur said...: Fernandistein said...
I most like the Muddy Waters version with Johnny Winters on board.

That would be "Mannish Boy".
___________________________________________________________________
True. That mean mannish boy.; 3/17/19, 9:33 AM
rhhardin said...: Why weren't you fired??

A department head across the hall thought it was astounding. Previous boss wanted to know how it was done, as he had tried some years earlier. It's not like it was a particularly fast computer. Today you'd just program the waveform and of course it would work; today's computer has time to spare. It's a thousand times faster.

Work culture.; 3/17/19, 9:51 AM
Oso Negro said...: @Althouse - There is the construct that in 1955, when Bo Diddly and Muddy Waters were writing, there was some freight associated with black males asserting that they were a man, spelled M-A-N instead of just a boy. But, feminism!; 3/17/19, 10:03 AM
chickelit said...: rhhardin said...I was a trombone player, so always led a column in the band. I had to learn the routines better than the lesser marchers behind me.

Oh look! There you are, wearing white pants before Easter!; 3/17/19, 10:14 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "There is the construct that in 1955, when Bo Diddly and Muddy Waters were writing, there was some freight associated with black males asserting that they were a man, spelled M-A-N instead of just a boy. But, feminism!"

Well, listen to the songs. They are about asserting dominance over females. Whatever wrongs have been imposed on black people, it does not justify the subordination of women. I'm not criticizing a sexual preference for domination. I'm critical of male domination over women. It was particularly offensive because Waters was playing off the big enthusiasm white people in the audience were showing for his routine. The white people's reaction to him struck me as racist (as well as sexist), and I would guess that Waters regarded the white audience's lapping up what he was serving as racist even as they loved themselves for the way they were loving him. The whole thing was sick. Watch it and get back to me.; 3/17/19, 10:20 AM
chickelit said...: That's a curious video -- all the head shots of Relf and of McCarty but hardly any face time for Jimmy Page. His playing guitar with a bow does foreshadow Led Zeppelin.; 3/17/19, 10:23 AM
D. Gorton said...: Bo Diddly didn't just write the tune, "I'm a Man". He explosively performed it with ear splitting guitar and drums. I saw him a number of times when I grew up in the Mississippi Delta. He was part of the "Fried Chicken Circuit" out of Chicago. His rendition of "I'm a Man" was profound in the 1950s and 60s in the segregated south. Later, after King was killed in Memphis, the black workers on strike carried signs - "I'm a Man". I think in light of the incredible movement in the south, in which Bo Diddly, Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf figured so prominently, this post was ill conceived as written. This is not Toxic Masculinity. This is claiming a place on earth.; 3/17/19, 10:47 AM
madAsHell said...: A department head across the hall thought it was astounding.

It is astounding.....and expensive......and....????

It sounds like something from the Ted Mack Amateur Hour. "And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, the singing PDP-11...."; 3/17/19, 10:49 AM
buwaya said...: Does this mean that one is specially non-racist if one does not care for "black" music, at all?

I can see that. For the record, I don't care for "black" music, or for very little of it. I will concede Cab Calloway amuses me.; 3/17/19, 11:21 AM
buwaya said...: I will make another exception for Eartha Kitt. Though I don't think her stuff was actually "black", as such.; 3/17/19, 11:47 AM
n.n said...: Ukuleles were not viable and justified selection with extreme prejudice.; 3/17/19, 11:48 AM
Fernandinande said...: Well, listen to the songs. They are about asserting dominance over females.

No, they're about how females love the MAN so much. The gals caint help it!

Somebody transcribe the version Waters sang in "The Last Waltz." It's very rape-y.

If it's "rape-y" than it's a different song, and since you're making the claim....; 3/17/19, 12:27 PM
Fernandinande said...: Bone Me Like You Own Me Barbara Carr

Pay Before You Pump Denise LaSalle

Etc.; 3/17/19, 12:31 PM
rhhardin said...: "A department head across the hall thought it was astounding."

It is astounding.....and expensive......and....????

It doesn't cost anything. The computer is there and idle. It's astounding because you'd guess it's well beyond the capability of the thing.

Using what's there in a clever way to do something unexpected.; 3/17/19, 12:44 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Bo Diddly didn't just write the tune, "I'm a Man". He explosively performed it with ear splitting guitar and drums. I saw him a number of times when I grew up in the Mississippi Delta. He was part of the "Fried Chicken Circuit" out of Chicago. His rendition of "I'm a Man" was profound in the 1950s and 60s in the segregated south. Later, after King was killed in Memphis, the black workers on strike carried signs - "I'm a Man". I think in light of the incredible movement in the south, in which Bo Diddly, Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf figured so prominently, this post was ill conceived as written. This is not Toxic Masculinity. This is claiming a place on earth."

However the phrase may have been used on other occasions, "I'm a Man" is a blatantly sexual song. It's about sex, not lofty humanitarianism. Give me a break. Read the lyrics. They're not about the Civil Rights Movement:

"All you pretty women
Stand in line
I can make love to you baby
In an hour's time

I'm a man
Spelled M-A-N
Man

I goin' back down
To Kansas soon
Bring back the second cousin
Little Johnny Cocheroo

I'm a man
Spelled M-A-N
Man

The line I shoot
Will never miss
The way I make love to 'em
They can't resist

I'm a man
I spell M-A-N
Man"; 3/17/19, 12:48 PM
Anonymous said...: While Jimmy Page does an incredible guitar solo the idiot cameraman focuses on the drummer beating on a cymbal. I definetely heard the strong 4/4 march beat. Rock and blues usually has a swing beat with emphasis on the 2 and 4.; 3/17/19, 12:54 PM
Anonymous said...: ...and those kids dancing didn’t how to move to that beat. They looked like they were expecting Pat Boone to show up.; 3/17/19, 1:03 PM
buwaya said...: Re "I'm a man" - its about sex of course, but the subtext is much more involved.

The point of this stuff, from a person on the low end of the totem pole, as all these "black" things are, is an assertion of status, not relative to women as much as relative to each other. Its not meant for women at all, and if there are women present they are just handy props.

Its a bit sad and desperate really.

Those fellows making sexual remarks and whistling at passing girls are doing exactly as this fellow. Note that this is almost always in the company of their peers. They are all very low on the social hierarchy, or so they perceive themselves. So they make a claim to sexual significance, and this becomes a group bonding exercise.

In a healthier social situation groups of boys and girls will normally flirt with and tease each other, neither "side" being strangers, and none being especially high or low in status. They will pair-bond early and forget such childish things.; 3/17/19, 1:09 PM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Status is the game indeed. Animal courtship rituals verbalized and electrified. If it weren't for the likes of the Yardbirds, Eric Burdon, the Stones and the like, no white kids would have ever heard about about Robert Johnson, Lightnin Hopkins, Howlin Wolf, Ma Rainey, Muddy Waters, Etta James et al. Freddie and the Dreamers anyone? College Kids would never know when to Pitch a Wang Dang Doodle.; 3/17/19, 2:19 PM
D. Gorton said...: Ann Althouse says:

However the phrase may have been used on other occasions, "I'm a Man" is a blatantly sexual song. It's about sex, not lofty humanitarianism. Give me a break. Read the lyrics. They're not about the Civil Rights Movement:

I repeat that, like the banner hoisted during the Sproul Plaza Free Speech Movement, "The issue is not the issue". A literal reading of the lyrics instead of a performance in Greenwood, Mississippi is naive.; 3/17/19, 5:53 PM
Oso Negro said...: Althouse said

Well, listen to the songs. They are about asserting dominance over females. Whatever wrongs have been imposed on black people, it does not justify the subordination of women. I'm not criticizing a sexual preference for domination. I'm critical of male domination over women. It was particularly offensive because Waters was playing off the big enthusiasm white people in the audience were showing for his routine. The white people's reaction to him struck me as racist (as well as sexist), and I would guess that Waters regarded the white audience's lapping up what he was serving as racist even as they loved themselves for the way they were loving him. The whole thing was sick. Watch it and get back to me.

I saw Muddy Waters play live at Antone's in Austin in 1977 and 1978. The audience was mixed black and white. Everyone was enthusiastic, not just white people. Clifford Antone brought in all the old black blues guys who were still kicking around. I never got the sense that they were anything other than pleased to find an audience for their music. I wouldn't take the sexual lyrics as oppressive, just exuberant. My general experience is that black culture is more open about sexuality than white culture, then and now, thank goodness. The black women in the audience were certainly very openly expressive of their appreciation of the performance. What I saw looked more like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5IOou6qN1o

Which I enjoy to this day waaayyy more than the Yardbirds.; 3/17/19, 9:23 PM
Kirk Parker said...: rhhardin's answer "work culture" is true enough, but it doesn't explain much to those who don't understand that particular work culture.

A slightly longer answer is: if you want good programmers, you will get the kind of people who do this sort of thing; and if you want him to keep working for you... you will at the very least tolerate this, if not entering into the fun yourself. (And it sounds like rhh had good managers who had been there and could enter in.); 3/18/19, 9:14 AM