I just stumbled into this song from 1926 with lyrics like "Masculine women, feminine men/Which is the rooster, which is the hen?/It's hard to tell 'em apart today" and "Knickers and trousers, baggy and wide/Nobody knows who's walking inside!"
The audio here is the Irving Kaufman version, from 1926, and the visual is a lot of pictures from movies of the 1910s/1920s/1930s (and from "Some Like It Hot," which is set in the 1920s):
I wasn't looking for transgender-adjacent popular songs. What happened was, I was reading about various 1960s pop stars and saw this about Tiny Tim:
In a 1968 interview on The Tonight Show, he described the discovery of his ability to sing in an upper register: "I was listening to the radio and singing along; as I was singing I said 'Gee, it's strange. I can go up high as well.'" In a 1969 interview he said he was listening to Rudy Vallée sing in a falsetto, and "had something of a revelation – I never knew that I had another top register," describing it as a religious experience.
Through Spotify, I found the key Rudy Vallée recording, "Deep Night." I have listened to that recording a hundred times in the last month. I'm trying to understand all the mysterious elements that make me love that song. It's because of "Deep Night" that I've been delving into 1920s playlists on Spotify. That's what put me in a position to notice "Masculine Women! Feminine Man!" And I thought you'd enjoy the diversion.
Here's an instrumental version with an excellent collection of photographs of less famous people — presumably centering on the 1920s and showing many women dressed as men and men as women (or, perhaps, transgender men and women):
Hey, hey
Women are going mad today
Hey, hey
Fellas are just as bad, I'll say!
Go anywhere
Just stand and stare
You'll say they're bugs
When you look at the clothes they wear
Masculine women, feminine men
Which is the rooster, which is the hen?
It's hard to tell 'em apart today
And say
Sister is busy learning to shave
Brother just loves his permanent wave
It's hard to tell 'em apart today
Hey, hey!
Girls were girls and boys were boys
When I was a tot
Now we don't know who is who
Or even what's what!
Knickers and trousers, baggy and wide
Nobody knows who's walking inside!
Those masculine women and feminine men
Stop, look, listen and you'll agree with me
Things are not what they used to be, you'll see
You say hello to Uncle Joe
Then look again, and you'll find it's your Auntie Flo!
Masculine women, feminine men
Which is the rooster, which is the hen?
It's hard to tell 'em apart today!
And say
Why, auntie is smoking, rolling her own
Uncle is always buying cologne
It's hard to tell 'em apart today
Hey, hey
You go into give your girl a kiss in the hall
But instead you find you're kissing her brother Paul!
Ma's got a sweater up to her chin;
Papa's got a girdle holding him in
Those masculine women and feminine men!
Now, wifey is playing billiards and pool
Hubby is dressing the kiddies for school
It's hard to tell 'em apart today
Hey, hey
Since the Prince of Wales in ladies' dresses was seen
What does he intend to be
The King or the Queen?
Why, grandmother buys those tailor-made clothes;
Grandfather tries to smell like a rose
Those masculine women and feminine men!
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21 comments:
And Deep Night's strangely long two-minute instrumental intro features a clarinet playing in an unusually low register.
Rudy Valley:
If nostalgia was a sound.
You know the saying- everything in its place- &a place for everything? Back in the days of my parents &before, there were definite boundaries. People loved the edges- or as Jordan Peterson would say- walking that line between order &chaos. That’s how we learn new things and experience inner growth. IMhumbleO.
We’ve all the ability to think fluid.
In this day and she, there are no more boundaries appreciated for their purpose: Stability. Security. Protection. Morality.
Instead, we have anger and anarchy. Greed and graft as the norm.
I’m sounding drastic- to me, it is drastic. The video shows adults making daring statements in joy.
Today, I see desperate measures taken to erase as opposed to enhance.
That’s all my time- going back to the barn to feed hungry calves. 18 out there- brrr.
remember the olden days?
back when we thought; that girls could wear pants, and even work on trucks?
Now, we Realize; that doing so MAKES YOU A MAN.. ONLY MEN CAN DO MASCULINE THINGS
We NEED to teach (well, GROOM) children at an Early age, 'cause they WON'T learn it on their own.
@tim
You're purporting to know what's in someone else's mind -- in this case just by looking at a photograph of them. You're plainly incapable of doing that, so your assertion is defective on its face. Who knows what other people even SAY they believe if you haven't heard them speak? If they do speak, how do you know they are telling the truth about what they believe? You might even question whether people *really* believe what they think they believe? For example, in religion, someone might say they believe in God or Jesus or the afterlife and even think they believe, but you still might wonder do they really believe? Even about your own mind, you might wonder, what do I really believe? If you don't, I'd like to know if you believe you are not shallow.
That song features in the television adaptation of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. Otherwise, so far as I know, it's been lost until now.
Otherwise, gay men would be sort of attracted to butch women, lesbians would be sort of attracted to effeminate men. Which is obviously not the case.
That's something people wonder about. I don't see how it relates to cross dressing though.
Ann Althouse said...
@tim
You're purporting to know what's in someone else's mind -- in this case just by looking at a photograph of them. You're plainly incapable of doing that, so your assertion is defective on its face.
You have no idea what I'm basing it on, so your assertion is defective on its face. Sometimes I think it would be fun to run a sidebar where we try to figure out what's going on in your personal life by the baselessness of your attacks on your own commenters.
It's pretty definite which sex is which when it comes to manner of thinking. Feelings or structure.
Jenner for instance is talking structure, not feelings. The girls are talking feelings, and so is the press, writing as they do for women.
Male and female minds seem to be pretty fixed.
I love music from that era.
Anyway, on the topic of Masculine Women, Feminine Man, I came across this video from today's world exaggerating the idea of Manly Men. It's a fun ad for a new razor from...of all places, The Daily Wire. Jeremy's Razors.
you still might wonder do they really believe
Believing doesn't happen except as a token in account.
"When I sat on the chair, I believed it would support my weight. I gave the matter no thought." (Wittgenstein) He's not reporting an act of believing but using it as a marker.
“Hard times create strong men,
strong men create good times,
good times create weak men,
and weak men create hard times.”
It really is simple as that.
Origin
1920s from German Transvestit, from Latin trans- ‘across’ + vestire ‘clothe’.
Today’s blurred culture is cannibalizing origins.
I did begin that sentence w/: “I believe…”
Decided to stand on my own 2feet.
i was listening to a Rudy Valle song a couple months ago, and I was surprised i Liked it. He sorta on grows on you.
Temujin: Brilliant!
You know the post about the founding of Hollywood &influential Jewish men?
I can see their fingerprints all over this ad. It’s the deadpanned sharp (as a razor) wit.
Social clubs, from the Rotary to the Eagles to members of the Woman's Leagues and Club associations, which were thick on the ground, very often held an annual dance and fundraiser where the men and women, mostly married, put on the opposite sex's clothes, performed skits and songs, and the men in female costume served the tea and cakes. These were a longtime tradition with deep roots in British Isles culture. They had nothing to do with today's politics and culture. The tradition died out around WWII but I've found societies still doing it into the early Sixties.
tim maguire said...
Ann Althouse said...
@tim
You're purporting to know what's in someone else's mind -- in this case just by looking at a photograph of them. You're plainly incapable of doing that, so your assertion is defective on its face.
You have no idea what I'm basing it on, so your assertion is defective on its face. Sometimes I think it would be fun to run a sidebar where we try to figure out what's going on in your personal life by the baselessness of your attacks on your own commenters.
************
Me too.
Maybe the Professor can adopt John Stewart's dodge, by prefacing her posts with these phrases:
"Cruel Neutrality" ON---I'm just putting this out there."
Cruel Neutrality" OFF---but don't you dare challenge or disagree with me."
While we're talking about gender benders, over at Breitbart some wag wrote in the comments:
"I know he would never be this silly, but I would love to see Clarence Thomas put on a wig and claim that he is the first black woman on the Supreme Court."
As Glenn Reynolds would say....
Heh
Trans/confused is a progressive condition with modern transgender therapy treatment of the general public through Choice (i.e. inculcation) and mandates.
Blogger Tina Trent said...
Social clubs, from the Rotary to the Eagles to members of the Woman's Leagues and Club associations, which were thick on the ground, very often held an annual dance and fundraiser where the men and women, mostly married, put on the opposite sex's clothes, performed skits and songs, and the men in female costume served the tea and cakes
wannabe tough guy Don Henley in a dress would be most appropriate…
"I have listened to that recording a hundred times in the last month."
Really? All the way through? I listened to the first couple hours of it, but I don't see how anyone could get through the whole thing. When I hear some hideously tedious, drawn-out piece of ennui like that, I always ponder on the amazing fact that the perpetrators must have practiced it. Over and over and over. Ghastly!
Britannica sez:
"In the United States, women typically wore long skirts, with the exception of some women who wore pantslike garments to perform work or engage in sports. While there were some women who championed pants in the 19th century, pants as an acceptable everyday clothing option for women didn’t truly catch on until the mid-20th century."
So can we now perceive the possibility that the lyrics of "Masculine Women! Feminine Men!" from 1926 were about ladies untypically donning pants while vaudeville comedians brought down the house by expanding the clothing switcheroo to include incidents of men doing face paint make-up and pinning up their hair? Kilt jokes go back forever, doncha know.
Nowadays, we'd hardly say that "wifey playing billiards and pool" and "hubby dressing the kiddies for school" is deviant behavior. People in the twenties had been brought up with much more rigid sex roles and were surprised and sometimes troubled by what we'd consider to be normal behavior.
People born in the twenties and thirties weren't completely different either. My dad's generation was very suspicious of conditioners and moisturizers, while younger people take the metrosexual phenomena in stride.
The voice of the Twenties, F. Scott Fitzgerald, starred in female roles in Princeton's Triangle Club. Maybe that's where it all got started.
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