As I often say when writing these posts: Hoo boy. There ended up being lots to say about this supposedly simple song. My purpose in writing this post, as with all that I do, is to deepen your understanding of what you’re singing (or hearing, if you’re reading this post as an audience member). Along with the lighthearted words and fun arrangement of this piece there’s a darker background arising from its source material, both immediate and historical.
So let’s see—where to begin? I guess with the fact that “Zip” won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1947; it had been performed in the 1946 Disney film Song of the South by James Haskett, a black actor who played the part of Uncle Remus. This movie is intriguing for a couple of reasons: 1) it mixes animation and live action, and 2) Disney has never released it in its entirety in the US on tape or digitally. I’m sure there are pirated versions out there, especially since the film was “re-released” several times. (You can watch the film in segments on YouTube.) And why has Disney kept this item in the vault? Here’s a good explanation:
The NAACP released a statement that said that while the artistic and technical aspects of the film were truly impressive, “the production helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery … [the film] unfortunately gives the impression of an idyllic master-slave relationship which is a distortion of the facts.” However, other reviewers thought that the issue was handled well. Even the actors defended their parts. Hattie McDaniel told The Criterion, “If I had for one moment considered any part of the picture degrading or harmful to my people I would not have appeared therein.” Star James Baskett agreed, saying, “I believe that certain groups are doing my race more harm in seeking to create dissension than can ever possibly come out of the Song of the South.” (from “10 Zip-a-Dee-DooDah Facts from Song of the South by Mental Floss”–the entire article is well worth a read.)
The film has the classic “framing” structure. In this case a young white boy goes to visit his grandmother down South when his parents split up; Uncle Remus, a black worker (slave?) befriends him and helps console the boy by telling him animal stories drawn from the ones by Joel Chandler Harris. (Harris was white, by the way, and to me his stories are almost unreadable, so thick is the dialect that he uses for his black characters.) We all know these animals, especially Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox. The animal stories are animated; the framing story is live action. It’s not completely clear, apparently, whether the story takes place before or after the end of the Civil War; either way, the status of the black workers on the plantation is ambiguous. There’s no recognition of slavery’s abuses. The song itself is introduced early in the film as a segue to the first of the Br’er Rabbit animated sequences; it ends the film also, as the three main child characters dance into the sunset along with their friend Uncle Remus.
But the really interesting part about “Zip” is its origin as a minstrel show song. I wrote a very l-o-n-g post several years ago about minstrel shows in relation to a piece arranged by Aaron Copland. Take a look if you didn’t read it then. (The material on minstrel shows in general starts a couple of paragraphs down.) These performances, by white actors in makeup and costumes that exaggerated racial stereotypes about Africans, particularly slaves, were unbelievably popular in the 1700’s and 1800’s. Two characters showed up repeatedly in these shows: Jim Crow the slave and Zip Coon the dandy. Zip had a popular song associated with him, “Ole Zip Coon,” with this chorus:
O Zip a duden duden duden zip a duden day.
O Zip a duden duden duden duden duden day.
O Zip a duden duden duden zip a duden day.
Zip a duden duden duden zip a duden day.
This song was sung to the same tune as “Turkey in the Straw” (yes, it does work–you have to cram in the words, though), and there’s some resemblance between that tune and the one for “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.” Did the composer and lyricist of the Disney song know about the earlier version? Who knows? I guess we’ll have to just leave its origins at that. The song itself has pretty much come completely unmoored from its roots and can be enjoyed on its own, but I have to say that I find the whole backstory completely fascinating.
I also want to address this whole “bluebird on my shoulder” thingy. I had a vague idea (as many of my ideas tend to be) that a bluebird is a symbol of happiness, but I had no idea how old and how widespread the symbol is, going all the way back to ancient China and also showing up in Native American and Russian folklore. But the bird was made most famous in modern times by way of a symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck, The Blue Bird, drawn from an ancient French tale. The program notes from a 1912 London performance say, “The Blue Bird, inhabitant of the pays bleu, the fabulous blue country of our dreams, is an ancient symbol in the folk-lore of Lorraine, and stands for happiness.” (Wikipedia) Why a bluebird? I honestly don’t know. I will say, however, that the plot of Maeterlinck’s play seems to me to echo that of The Wizard of Oz. (Oz was indeed published first, in 1900, with the play following in 1908. But it’s unlikely that Maeterlinck knew about the book, given the short time separating the two works and the two separate countries involved. Who knows?) Both stories have a protagonist or protagonists who are looking for happiness, and in both stories the source of happiness is already with them, at home. Maeterlinck’s two children go on a search for the bluebird of happiness and return home empty-handed, only to find that the bird was in a cage there all along. Dorothy yearns for adventure, gets carried off to Oz, and only then realizes how much she wants to go home—which she could have done all along with her ruby slippers.
Well, perhaps I’m belaboring the point. Here’s the performance of the song from the film to help that process along:
And here’s a great choral arrangement, the same one that I’ve sung with my own choir. I have not been able to track down the name of the arranger. The video quality itself is horrible, but it’s a high-energy performance–you can’t resist the enthusiasm of these high school students:
© Debi Simons
