And It's "Hoop-ee-ee," Not "Whuppy"—Texan Congressman Corrects Us
Congressman Maverick, author of the following, is a member of one of the oldest cattle-owning families in the Southwest, and is an authority on cowboys and their customs. The well-known term "maverick" came from his family name.
By Maury Maverick
Congressman from Texas
Washington (A P)—One of the main things about "cowboy songs" is that they almost never are sung by cowboys.
Still, the first time I got acutely bored with "cowboy songs" was when everybody was working "The Last Roundup" overtime. It's a pretty good tune, at that, but it nearly always was used with false atmosphere and false intonations.
Cowboys rarely sing anything—and incidentally when they do use the word "whoopee" they use it right. People on Broadway, talking about making whoopee, pronounce it rather like the hoop out of a wheel. The way to pronounce it is hoop—like in boop-a-doop—and you shouldn't end it with a little "y" sound, but ee-ee!! So, the word should be yelled out, "hoop—ee—ee!"
Hill Billy Butchery
They are signing "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie" with the manner of Negro revival singers in the spirituals—and besides, they omit the "NOT."
While we're on the subject, the stuff being sung as "hill-billy" is about as bad. I've lived around the mountains of Tennesse some, too, and have heard some singing, but never the butchery that goes out now. The trouble is that big cities are self-conscious and don't use what little art they have of their own, but try to corrupt the culture of the people who live from the soil.
There are such things as genuine songs of the mountain country of the South—and some of them were brought down from Elizabethan times. There are a few real cowboy songs, but very, very few so far as general usage is concerned.
The plain fact is that cowboys have no time to be bellowing around a fire, with fancy silk handkerchiefs around their necks, yelping into each other's ears.
And while I'm talking about cowboys I might take on a few of these people who sing "Mexican songs." Now a Mexican can really sing. He's got us all skinned a hundred miles. I've heard Mexicans sing ever since I was born; but the way some of these radio imitators sing is nothing less than appalling.
What we need in this country is lower railroad rates, so people could travel around and find out how other folks sing in other places, so they won't put on poor imitations.
Otherwise, if some city boy feels he must sing, let him sing of he city—something that really tells of the beauties and tragedies of city life; something in which the cities may lose their self-consciousness and develop a genuine, and not a spurious imitative, folk-lore.
In France I heard boys from the sidewalks sing of their cities, and their songs had beauty and color and an authentic feeling. But the stuff they're putting out now is — well, simply unrelieved "moonshine."
Daily Boston Globe, Feb 9, 1936, p. B2
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