With a Capital R and that Rhymes with Racist

A couple of weekends back I heard part of one of the home-based Live From Here broadcasts (which they called Live From Home). In it, host Chris Thile did a rendition of the song "Ya Got Trouble" from The Music Man, written by Meredith Wilson. It was amusing because Thile had his child do the part of con man Harold Hill's sidekick (played by Buddy Hackett in the movie) and I think his wife was playing all the other parts.

I know that musical pretty well because I played drums in the pit band when I was a freshman in high school, and I've seen the movie version a couple of times. Love Robert Preston! But hearing it this time after many years, and maybe because it was radio and I didn't have the visuals to distract me, and maybe because I've just had a lot more time to think about racism and dog whistles... I heard the lyrics in a different way.

Do you know the song? It was written in the mid-1950s, with the show's Broadway run starting in 1957. I don't know what Wilson's politics were or how much he was making fun of small town Iowa and the general air of moral panic in the 1950s vs. channeling unthinking white racism, but it sure is there. In the familiar plot, "Professor" Harold Hill latches onto the arrival of a pool table in the local billiard hall as the thing that will be the problem he can solve with his boy's band... and the chance to sell instruments to the whole town.

Billiards, somehow, are okay, but pool, the song tells us, is the devil's plaything and on this listen, it was obvious to me that the devil = associated with Black people.

Friend, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do not wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of a pool table in your community
Well, ya got trouble, my friend, right here
I say, trouble right here in River City
Why sure I'm a billiard player
Certainly mighty proud I say
I'm always mighty proud to say it
I consider that the hours I spend
With a cue in my hand are golden
Help you cultivate horse sense
And a cool head and a keen eye
J'ever take and try to find
An iron-clad leave for yourself
From a three-rail billiard shot?

But just as I say
It takes judgment, brains, and maturity to score
In a balkline game
I say that any boob can take
And shove a ball in a pocket
And I call that sloth
The first big step on the road
To the depths of deg-ra-day--
I say, first, medicinal wine from a teaspoon
Then beer from a bottle!
An' the next thing ya know
Your son is playin' for money
In a pinch-back suit
And list'nin to some big out-a-town jasper
Hearin' him tell about horse-race gamblin'
Not a wholesome trottin' race, no!
But a race where they set down right on the horse!
Like to see some stuck-up jockey boy
Settin' on Dan Patch? Make your blood boil?
Well, I should say
Now, friends, lemme tell you what I mean
Ya got one, two, three, four, five, six pockets in a table
Pockets that mark the diff'rence
Between a gentlemen and a bum
With a capital "B,"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!

And all week long your River City
Youth'll be fritterin' away
I say your young men'll be fritterin'!
Fritterin' away their noontime, suppertime, choretime too!
Get the ball in the pocket
Never mind gettin' dandelions pulled
Or the screen door patched or the beefsteak pounded
Never mind pumpin' any water
'Til your parents are caught with the cistern empty
On a Saturday night and that's trouble
Yes you got lots and lots of trouble
I'm thinkin' of the kids in the knickerbockers
Shirt-tail young ones, peekin' in the pool
Hall window after school, ya got trouble, folks!
Right here in River City
Trouble with a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!

Now, I know all you folks are the right kind of parents
I'm gonna be perfectly frank
Would ya like to know what kinda conversation goes
On while they're loafin' around that Hall?
They be tryin' out Bevo, tryin' out cubebs
Tryin' out Tailor Mades like cigarette fiends!
And braggin' all about
How they're gonna cover up a tell-tale breath with Sen-Sen
One fine night, they leave the pool hall
Headin' for the dance at the Arm'ry!
Libertine men and Scarlet women!
And Rag-time, shameless music
That'll grab your son, your daughter
With the arms of a jungle animal instinct!
Mass-staria!
Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground!
Trouble!

[PEOPLE]
Oh, we got trouble

[HAROLD]
Right here in River City!

[PEOPLE]
Right here in River City!

[HAROLD]
With a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P"
And that stands for pool

[PEOPLE]
That stands for pool!

[HAROLD]
We've surely got trouble!

[PEOPLE]
We've surely got trouble!

[HAROLD]
Right here in River City

[PEOPLE]
Right here!

[HAROLD]
Gotta figure out a way
To keep the young ones moral after school!

[PEOPLE]
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble...

[HAROLD]
Mothers of River City!
Heed that warning before it's too late!
Watch for the tell-tale signs of corruption!
The moment your son leaves the house
Does he re-buckle his knickerbockers below the knee?
Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger?
A dime novel hidden in the corn crib?
Is he starting to memorize jokes from Cap'n Billy's Whiz Bang?
Are certain words creeping into his conversation?
Words like, like "swell"?

[PEOPLE]
Trouble, trouble, trouble!

[HAROLD]
Aha! And "so's your old man"?

[PEOPLE]
Trouble, trouble, trouble!

[HAROLD]
Well, if so my friends
Ya got trouble

[PEOPLE]
Oh, we got trouble

[HAROLD]
Right here in River City!

[PEOPLE]
Right here in River City!

[HAROLD]
With a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P"
And that stands for pool!

[PEOPLE]
That stands for pool!

[HAROLD]
We've surely got trouble!

[PEOPLE]
We've surely got trouble!

[HAROLD]
Right here in River City!

[PEOPLE]
Right here!

[HAROLD]
Remember the Maine, Plymouth Rock and the Golden Rule!
Oh, we got trouble
We're in terrible, terrible trouble
That game with the fifteen numbered balls is a devil's tool!

Reading the lyrics now, I realize there aren't that many clearly racist references and it was the specific mention of ragtime music and "jungle animal instinct" that set me off. The other two phrases I highlighted would not have been enough and could mean be innocuous. (I also think I heard Bevo — which was an alcoholic drink — as bebop, so that was a mishearing.) But "jungle animal instinct" is the topper, it really is.

As I said above, I don't claim Meredith Wilson was using this racist trope intentionally, but when the con man character sets out to manipulate the townspeoples' fears, he does it expertly by throwing in lots of Other-associated signifiers, and there's no better Other for most of white America than Black people and their music. The story takes place before the Reefer Madness period, or I'm sure he would have thrown that in, too.