History Lesson

Brian Hight wonders:

There's a line at the beginning of one of Eminem's latest songs that refers to where "Two trailer park girls ..".this has become a discussion point in our office, as we're not exactly sure what the last part of the phrase means...is it just a literal phrasing, something you could use your imagination to dechiper, or something more licentious?



For those who have not heard Eminem's current single, "Without Me," the lyric in question is:



"Two trailer park girls go 'round the outside/

'Round the outside/

'Round the outside"



This is a riff on a lyric from a song called "Buffalo Gals," originally released in 1981 by Malcolm McLaren, the manager/Svengali behind the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols. "Buffalo Gals" is an odd mix of square dancing and breakdancing. The line is "Two buffalo gals go 'round the outside/'Round the outside/'Round the outside" and eventually one is encouraged to "do-si-do your partner."



McLaren's website bills Buffalo Gals as the "first commercial rap/scratch hip-hop single." This assertion may be

McLaren's trademark hucksterish hyperbole, but the song probably is the first instance of a white musician co-opting hip-hop music and selling it back to black folks, or as Eminem himself says on "Without Me:" "To use black music so selfishly/and use it to make myself wealthy."



If I wrote a trivia question about this sort of thing, people would grouse that my questions were "too hard."

Brian wouldn't; I've never known him to complain about question difficulty. This doesn't mean I'm terribly smart, just that I'm really really old.