So I'm humming "Puttin on the Ritz" as i saw it on Mel Brooks "Young Frankenstein"(funny movie, btw), and i decide to look it up,
and i discovered this....
IRVING BERLIN'S ORIGINAL LYRICS
The original version of Berlin's song referred to the then-popular
fad of well-to-do white New Yorkers visiting African American jazz
music venues in Harlem. Berlin later revised the lyrics because of
the racial references and to make it more generally applicable to
going out on the town in style:
Have you seen the well-to-do
Up on Lennox Avenue
On that famous thoroughfare
With their noses in the air
High hats and arrow collars
White spats and lots of dollars
Spending ev'ry dime
For a wonderful time
If you're blue and
You don't know where to go to
Why don't you go where Harlem sits
Puttin' on the Ritz
Spangled gowns upon the bevee of high browns
From down the levee
All misfits
Puttin' on the Ritz
That's where each and ev'ry Lulu-Belle goes
Ev'ry Thursday evening with her swell beaus
Rubbing elbows
Come with me and we'll attend
The jubilee, and see them spend
Their last two bits
Puttin' on the Ritz
** Some lyric explanations:
Lenox Avenue - A main thoroughfare in Harlem.
High browns - A variation of the phrase "high yellow", referring to
someone of mixed racial background, usually with the inference that
they're putting on airs beyond their social station.
Lulu-Belle - A generic nickname for a black maid.
Ev'ry Thursday evening - Typically, the maid's night off.
The idea is, wanna have a good time go to Harlem and watch the black folk spend all their $$, and parade around, act like they got it made, when you know they dirt poor.......hm.....
Racist? mebbe....
But perhaps, he was just telling what he saw........