Category Archives: Musical

Gigolo

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 23, 2015
Primary Language: English

*Note: Taylor is a member of the student organization USC Troy Camp, a group that mentors/tutors students in the South Central L.A. area and raises funds during the year to send 200 elementary schoolchildren from South L.A. to a week-long summer camp in Idyllwild, CA. This week-long camp is completely run by the counselors, and through the year many legends and traditions have developed that are upheld/told each year at camp, carried on by newer counselors as older ones graduate. Because I am also a member of Troy Camp, she didn’t provide any context for this, so I figured I’d do so to minimize confusion. This is a description of one of our many camp songs – this one’s called “Gigolo.”

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The informant learned Gigolo when she first joined Troy Camp as a freshman. Older members either teach it to new members directly or just kind of throw them into it because it’s a call-and-response song. Generally, one person will call to another and that person will eventually show the group “how they gigolo,” and the rest of the group will chant. At the end of the song (which can happen after two people or 20 people do their individual gigolos), the person who just gigolo’d will call out all of Troy Camp instead of an individual, and then there is a longer chant that the whole group sings, with accompanying hand motions. The informant and I walked through the song together.

INFORMANT: Hey Jules!

COLLECTOR (myself): Hey what?

INFORMANT: Are you ready?

COLLECTOR: For what?

INFORMANT: To gig (pronounced jig)!

COLLECTOR: Gig what?

INFORMANT: -alo!

COLLECTOR: Ohhhhhhhhhh. My hands are high [raises hands], my feet are low [point to feet] and this is how I gigolo [do a little dance]!

WHOLE GROUP: Her hands are high [raise hands], her feet are low [point to feet] and this is how I gigolo [mimic dance]. Gig… alo, gig- gig, alo- what what? Gig… alo, gig- gig alo!

Then the person who just did the dance calls out someone else, and the song repeats. Eventually…

INFORMANT: Hey Troy Camp!

WHOLE GROUP: Hey what?

INFORMANT: Are you ready?

WHOLE GROUP: For what?

INFORMANT: To gig!

WHOLE GROUP: Gig what?

INFORMANT: -alo!

WHOLE GROUP: Ohhhh! Bang, bang, choo choo train / wind me up and I’ll do my thing / No Reese’s Pieces, no buttercups / You mess with me I’ll mess you up / My back aches, my belt’s too tight / My hips shake from the left to the right / Left, right, left right left right / I turn around, I touch the ground / I get back up, I break it down / My hands are high my feet are low and this is how I gigolo! [group dances]

 

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Thoughts: Summer camps are known for having different variations of the same songs, and I can personally attest to that in this case. I went to a different summer camp as a kid, and we also sang gigolo, with a couple small alterations (alo alo instead of alo what what, hands are low instead of feet are low). We also didn’t have the group chant bang bang choo choo train part, though something along those lines did comprise a whole separate camp song we sang! “Bang Bang Choo Choo Train” is also used in cheer camps or by cheerleaders as a cheer.

Camp songs are the perfect example of variants – each camp has a very distinct, concentrated culture, and while the general attributes of the song remain the same, little pieces are different and/or specific to the particular camp at which they’re being sung, just like stories or riddles from different countries have the same general framework but vary in their details. These songs have to have started somewhere, so it makes one wonder how they spread from camp to camp, and where exactly they originated.

Gigolo in particular is a great camp song because it allows the group to learn different group members’ names, and lets everyone interact both between individuals and as a greater group/community.

 

Delta Sigma Theta step/chant

Nationality: American
Age: 47
Occupation: Spanish teacher
Residence: Memphis, TN
Performance Date: March 21, 2015
Primary Language: English

The chant:

“Contrary, contrary, contrary to the story,

Everybody knows that this is Delta territory.

In 1913, a change was made,

And for a solid sisterhood, the foundation was laid.

Twenty-two women who were destined to lead

Founded the devastating, captivating—DST.

In Delta Sigma Theta Sorority,

Public service is our number one priority.

For royal red, and nine white pearls,

It takes a lot to be a—Delta girl.”

 

The informant, my mom, is from Tennessee working as a middle school Spanish teacher. She learned this sorority chant in college in the South from her sorority sisters while they were getting ready for a stepping competition. Stepping is a combination of claps, steps, and chants to a particular rhythm; this practice is popular among traditionally black Greek organizations. She told me that she learned a lot of chants while pledging Delta Sigma Theta, but she didn’t learn this one until later. These chants are usually learned directly from sorority sisters or fraternity brothers in these organizations, and many have roots as far back as the beginning of the 20th century when the organizations were founded. The chant serves primarily to tell Delta’s history and take pride in their organization, while carrying out impressive stepping as well. Thus, it is somewhat also the mythology upon which Delta Sigma Theta is founded, as it tells of its origins and identity.

Sorority Bus Chant

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 18, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant: It goes—okay, don’t laugh—it goes: [to the tune of Take Me Out to the Ball Game]

Take me out to your frat house, take me up to your room;

We don’t need pillows or sheets tonight, just a condom that fits you just right;

For it’s fuck, fuck, fuck ‘til the morning;

If I don’t come, you’re to blame;

For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out;

By the way, what’s your name?

The informant is a student at the University of Southern California. She is a member of a sorority, and was born and raised in Chicago, IL.

This piece is one I originally encountered in its intended context—on a bus, bound for a sorority invite (off-campus party to which dates can be invited)—but collected months later in order to catch the full lyrics. While the chant was sung with brazen gusto on the bus, once the informant had sobered up, she admitted that the chant is “definitely not reflective of what we’re about.” Most performers of the chant seemed to feel the same: the chant is a fun sorority tradition, but the lyrics are laughably outlandish and don’t reflect the moral values of modern-day performers. Hence the informant’s little introduction to the piece, letting me know that she doesn’t stand behind the lyrics or take them seriously.

The chant, the informant told me, has been passed down through the years; she isn’t sure when it was started, but she knows that different sororities sing different variations of the song, and the lyrics have changed slightly over the years (sorority members are not allowed to write down the lyrics in any form because, as a national organization, the sorority does not want to be attached to such a scandalous chant).

The context of the chant is essential to know: sorority members sing it on a crowded bus while their dates watch and listen. The goal of the chant is, most likely, to convince the dates that sorority members are fun and ready to party that evening. The chant also has fairly overt sexual suggestions, and therefore might be a way for sorority members to approach the topic of what will happen after invite.

Choctaw Freedman Anti-California Song

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 29, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant: When my grandma moved from the reservation in Oklahoma—the one where, like, you know, they were forced to go after the Trail of Tears and stuff—to California, people were mean to her and her family. And the other Choctaw Freeman. So they’d sing this little song, like:

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

all the Okies go to heaven.

When we get up there;

we’ll sing: hell, hell,

you’re gonna go to hell,

all the Californians are gonna go to hell!”

The informant is a student at the University of Southern California. She is from an “eccentric” family. Her grandmother is Choctaw Freedman (formerly enslaved African Americans who joined the Native American Choctaws in Oklahoma) and has passed on many of her traditions and beliefs to the informant.

This song, the informant told me, is something her grandmother and other Choctaw Freedmen preformed together when they came to California and faced prejudice. The song is colored with equal parts resentment for Californians and pride in the Choctaw Freedmen identity.

Clothes-less Curtain Call

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/03/15
Primary Language: English

Collector: Are there any opening night traditions that you guys do in theatre?

Informant: Um, we had a closing night tradition at my high school. I went to an all girls high school and we would have to borrow boys from the boys’ schools to play the male roles in our shows. And on the last day of the performance, the crew, while they were taking the bow at the end, the costume crew would come and hide the boys’ clothes backstage.

Collector: Oh my. That’s funny!

Informant: Yeah, then they would have to, obviously, walk past all the girls ashamedly in their boxers. I always felt kind of bad about it, because I knew I would hate it if I was doing a show at a boys’ school and they did that, but… I mean it was a tradition!

Collector’s Notes: I think “hazing” would be a strong word for this, but it’s definitely an initiation tactic.  I think a lot of it has to do with gender roles and divides that exist between boys and girls, especially at the really liminal age that kids are at in high school.  These girls were accepting these boys into their community, and in order to make themselves more comfortable, they took the boys’ comfort away.  It also sort of makes light of the obvious tension that usually goes on around boys and girls when they’re involved in things like theatre where everyone is changing backstage and might accidentally catch a glimpse of someone else.  This makes those sorts of taboo situations easier to talk about and manage because it’s done with humor instead of seriousness.  And I think it may have been a way to show a little bit of dominance to the male visitors: Because girls are territorial when it comes to their school, and boys naturally try to take charge of situations that they’re put into.  The act of taking someone’s clothes in our culture is sort of bringing them to a baseline humility, and would make it clear that the girls were in charge.