Terms Which Have Disappeared

[dh66]

What did "Gone" and "Crazy" mean? Bill Haley says them a lot in his songs, and they clearly don't mean gone, or crazy in the traditional sense.

Cool, hip, hep, with it, out there, in.

Sent from my XT1030 using Tapatalk

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep, that was "jive talk", popular with urban black hep cats in the early/mid-forties. It took about ten years to sift down to the white boys.

White kids had their own variety of "jive talk" during the swing era. "Send me!" meant to dispatch the speaker into realms of ecstatic appreciation, as by playing a hot solo especially well. "Solid," a term I sometimes find myself using, meant something which was top-notch, first-rate, strictly high-class, a jitterbug's version of "swell." A "solid send" was something so extraordinarily good that the speaker was reduced to paroxymic spasms of delight.

By the way, an aficionado of swing was referred to as a "jitterbug" only by detractors. The label was not appreciated or embraced by the first generation to whom it was applied. They preferred to call themselves "alligators," or "gators," hence the expressions "Greetings, gate" and "see ya later, alligator."

 

[tonyb]

Before that it had an even earlier meaning -- to call someone foxy meant they were sly or clever, and had nothing whatever to do with appearance. ...

That's what I first understood it to mean, well before it became a gloss for "physically alluring."

 

[tonyb]

... "Solid," a term I sometimes find myself using, meant something which was top-notch, first-rate, strictly high-class ...

It's a quite serviceable word, for sure. Nothing flimsy about a solid performance. It's akin to "cool" (some definitions of "cool," anyway) in that its (once) slangy usage is so clearly implied by its original meaning.

In recent years I've heard it used as a noun in phrases such as "he did me a solid." (If the noun is dropped the adjective becomes the noun, no? The meaning would change not at all if the speaker were to say "he did me a solid turn.")

 

[Stanley Doble]

What did "Gone" and "Crazy" mean? Bill Haley says them a lot in his songs, and they clearly don't mean gone, or crazy in the traditional sense.

Gone and crazy both came from jazz lingo.

Jazz is based on creating variations on a theme. The farther a musician could depart from the notes on the page, the better. So "far out" compliments the artist's ability to create unique variations.

"Gone" indicates that the artist is so far out, he has departed this world and is in a world of his own.

Crazy has a similar meaning, that the artist is so far out, so gone, that he is practically insane.

 

[Stanley Doble]

In Harlem Jazz slang, gate mouth = black jazz fan or musician, slot mouth = white jazz fan or musician.

Eventually gate mouth, gate, gator, alligator came to mean a solid jazz fan or part of the in group.

 

[Stanley Doble]

For a taste of real gone forties jazz slang, see Song Of The Thin Man, the last of the Powell/Loy Thin Man mystery series.

Nick and Nora Charles investigate the murder of a band leader and the disappearance of the prime suspect, a real crazy clarinet player. Their search leads them through the jazz underworld of the city to a series of murders and attempted murders.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Jack Paar used to tell a funny story about how his daughter's friends thought everything was "cool", a cool shirt, cool song, cool car, cool everything.

So he asked her boy friend what was with this "cool" business.

He explained "Mr. Paar, we use "cool" the way your generation used "hot".

Actually "hot" was the great compliment to a jazz musician, until bebop and West Coast "cool" jazz took the music in a more cerebral direction.

 

[Stearmen]

Gone and crazy both came from jazz lingo.

Jazz is based on creating variations on a theme. The farther a musician could depart from the notes on the page, the better. So "far out" compliments the artist's ability to create unique variations.

"Gone" indicates that the artist is so far out, he has departed this world and is in a world of his own.

Crazy has a similar meaning, that the artist is so far out, so gone, that he is practically insane.

He's a real gone daddy!

 

[Stearmen]

Rock & Roll. Before it meant a type of music, it was slang for sex, and at the turn of the 20th century, you would be Rocking & Rolling for the Lord! Amazing how two simple words could change so radically in just one generation!

 

[Stanley Doble]

You mean as in Holy Roller?

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Boswell Sisters recorded "Rock and Roll" in 1934. It was about "the rollin' rockin' rhythm of the sea." Honest it was.

 

[dh66]

In 1951 Hardrock Gunter recorded "Gonna Dance all Night", which included the lyric " gonna rock and roll all night", which generally is recognized as the first recorded use of the phrase to mean what we all know and love it to mean these days.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Songwriters of the Era had a real knack for coming up with euphemisms for the fleshly pleasures. In "You're Gonna Lose Your Gal," a big hit in 1934, the subject of the song is told "someone else will shoes-and-rice her, someone else will paradise her." That's a lot more poetic than "Sorry Charlie, she's gonna marry this other guy, and *you* ain't gettin' any."

Another "rock" tune from the thirties was "Rock It To Me," which means exactly what you think it does, especially when Teddy Grace does the vocal. These weren't "dirty blues" records for an underground market, this was mainstream tin-pan-alley stuff.

 

[dh66]

I didn't mean that kind of rock and roll......I meant the kind of which there is a hall of fame in Cleveland.

 

[dh66]

But you are correct, there wasn't much in the way of standards or censorship back in those days. It seems it wasn't until after the war that folks got so uptight. My absolute favorite example of the naivety (or whatever you want to call it) of the fresh scrubbed era is Bill Haley's "Shake, Rattle, and Roll". The censors sure didn't have a clue, and if someone told me Haley didn't either, I wouldn't have a hard time believing it.

 

[Renault]

Anyone other than a few of us outdoorsy types still use the word "skookum"? Old native (Athabaskan mebbe??). Means something is first rate, top shelf, really good!

 

[dh66]

I know a cat who's the outdoorsy type.....and a fairly proficient "herbalist". I've heard him use the term in reference to what was in his peace pipe.

 

[Renault]

I know a cat who's the outdoorsy type.....and a fairly proficient "herbalist". I've heard him use the term in reference to what was in his peace pipe.

. I bet!!!

 

[tonyb]

But you are correct, there wasn't much in the way of standards or censorship back in those days. It seems it wasn't until after the war that folks got so uptight. My absolute favorite example of the naivety (or whatever you want to call it) of the fresh scrubbed era is Bill Haley's "Shake, Rattle, and Roll". The censors sure didn't have a clue, and if someone told me Haley didn't either, I wouldn't have a hard time believing it.

I'm confident I'm not the only one who would be embarrassed by how absolutely clueless he has been, and likely still is, in ways that may or may not become apparent to him someday.

I must have been well into my teens before the "rock 'n' roll" light bulb over my head finally switched on. This despite even Chuck Berry's not-so-subtle allusions in "Reelin' and Rockin'".

A forehead-slapping moment, for sure. But then, I've been known to walk around searching for the keys I have in my hand.