Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2022 March 24

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March 24

East Is East (1999 film) - Sajid's coat

WP:DENY. --Jayron32 12:04, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
In the 1999 British film East Is East, why did the youngest Khan child Sajid wore a parka coat in and out doors and never took it off until the end? 86.130.219.54 (talk) 19:24, 23 March 2022 (UTC) Because that is how it was written. It is a work of fiction. If the answer is not supplied or implied in the script, there is no answer, only speculation, which is discouraged on the reference desks. Having said that, maybe he simply liked his parka. Shantavira|feed me 09:20, 24 March 2022 (UTC) Kenny! 41.165.67.114 (talk) 10:02, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Pistol Packin' Mama

I've been playing a lot of Fallout 4 recently, which means that I've been doing a lot of listening to the music therein. The version of the song they use is the famous one by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. One of the stanzas goes like this:

 Pappy made a batch of corn
The revenuers came
The drought was slow
So now they know
You can't do that to Mame

It's an odd stanza that doesn't really follow the flow of the rest of the song and I'm struggling to understand almost any of it. Pappy is the father and I suppose "Mame" is the mother. Are "revenuers" tax collectors? If we take "drought was slow" to mean that crops were good (i.e. the drought had lessened) is this about tax assessors wanting more money? But it comes after the bit about revenuers coming - as if it's part of the response to the revenuers rather than their reason for showing up. Now, it's just a song and could be nonsensical, but as I said it kind of sticks out from the rest of the material. Someone decided to add it in there. Is there something I'm missing? The song's 80 years old and so could well be referencing stuff completely foreign to me. Matt Deres (talk) 13:50, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Just thinking this through further - is corn here meant to be read as corn to make whiskey with? Matt Deres (talk) 13:55, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

"Revenuers" were the term used by moonshine distillers for agents of the government, usually the ATF, which was at the time one of the law enforcement arms of the Department of the Treasury, at the time known as the Bureau of Internal Revenue, from whence they got their name. They had absorbed the Bureau of Prohibition, and became the main enforcement arm of the Volstead Act, and after it was repealed, of alcohol laws in general. Revenue Agents were usually responsible for shutting down illegal moonshine operations, "made a batch of corn" is slang for "distilled some corn whiskey, aka moonshine. --Jayron32 14:22, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Or as Snuffy Smith would say, "revenooers". --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:48, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Ah, okay that makes a bit more sense. Thank you! Matt Deres (talk) 00:19, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

There's this old story about an attempted intervention for a hard drinker. They show him a glass filled with water and a glass filled with whiskey. They put a worm in the water and it swims around vigorously. Then they put the worm in the booze and it dies. They ask the drinker if this tells him something. "Yep. If I keep drinkin' corn, I won't get worms!" --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:51, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Better safe than sorry! Matt Deres (talk) 17:49, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Pistol Packin' Mama on 78 at archive.org, for reference. I'm hearing "their draw was slow", i.e. the revenuers were slow to draw their pistols and Mame shot them first. You can hear the same line in the Pied Pipers version.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:38, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, I think you may be right. A mondegreen I suppose! If so, that makes the whole stanza make more sense. You've clearly got sharper ears than I do - what do you make of the earlier bit: "She's a terror make no error / But there ain't no nicer terror"? My ears aren't so great at distinguishing unclear speech, but the lyrics provided don't seem correct there either. I'm hearing an 'f' sound near the end. Matt Deres (talk) 00:19, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

One of the lyrics sites supplies "but there ain't no lassie fairer", which makes sense, though what I hear is more like "licey". I thought at first it was "but there ain't no license for her". Is that a phrase? That's not a phrase. It's probably "lassie fairer".  Card Zero  (talk) 02:03, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I hadn't seen that one, but I agree that's probably more likely. Most of the lyrics are sung fairly "straight", but they do occasionally use odd stresses for effect which makes it tricky to be sure. Way back when I started using the internet in 1993, one of the things I liked the most was getting access to "the" lyrics to songs. But it turned out that 99% of them were wrong - and obviously wrong - and that hasn't changed in the three decades since. Matt Deres (talk) 17:49, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Lyrics sites seem to have even more problems than usual when dealing with many country or folk songs. Apparently the people trying to transcribe these songs often aren't familiar with the accents and dialects involved. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 19:56, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

"Mame" can be a variant on "Mama".[1] --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:27, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you all for the insight into this. On a very tangential note, one of the other songs used in F4 is the Johnny Mercer version of Personality (which I was going to ask a question about, but figured it out). It notes several women from history/story known for their sexuality (the song uses "personality" as a tongue in cheek euphemism), including Madame du Barry, who was completely unknown to me previously. So, I wondered why the song chose to include her rather than someone more famous/infamous, like Cleopatra or Bathsheba or even Betty Grable. But a quick glance at her article made it clear that in early 20th C USA, she was apparently an extremely potent historical figure that people would have immediately recognized... until the 1950s or so, after which her star dimmed almost completely. Just weird how history can be so fickle. Matt Deres (talk) 17:49, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Never Mind the Bollocks, by Bob Dylan

Who's responsible for this beautiful travesty? I'm reasonably confident it's not Bob Dylan! The album cover is taken from an actual obscure Bob Dylan live album (recorded in Wales), though, so that doesn't help. The only clue I see on the page is the year 2011. It sounds distinctly Irish. Did The Levellers (band) have a horn section? Could it be the Sultans of Ping? Perhaps Neck (band)?  Card Zero  (talk) 15:25, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Is it the same as This bootleg album? That was recorded mostly in Cardiff... --Jayron32 15:53, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

No, that's just where the cover image comes from.  Card Zero  (talk) 15:55, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Celtic punk makes me think Dropkick Murphys, though I don't know that they did anything dylanesque. Maybe Me First and the Gimme Gimmes? They are a well known punk cover supergroup, and while not Irish, have done some Dylan tunes over the years. I'm afraid that in my current environment, I can't listen to it right now, but when I get a chance, I'll see if I recognize it. --Jayron32 16:09, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I believe I've found my answer: Mr. Irish Bastard. German Irish folk-punk, a heady combination. I really like the tin whistle playing, and that's not something I ever expect to say again.  Card Zero  (talk) 16:39, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

See also "Never Mind the Bastards" by Leonard Cohen, a posthumous cover of the Dylan album.  --Lambiam 17:46, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Resolved