The ice cream truck song- that many of us thought was about “Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro?”-has connections to a totally different song that was made popular years before a rhyme about your ears wobbling to and fro, NPR’s Theodore R. Johnson III explains:

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“‘Nigg*r Love A Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!’ merits the distinction of the most racist song title in America. Released in March 1916 by Columbia Records, it was written by actor Harry C. Browne and played on the familiar depiction of black people as mindless beasts of burden greedily devouring slices of watermelon.”

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The song even begins with a skit about ice cream:

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Browne: “You nigg*rs quit throwin’ them bones and come down and get your ice cream!”
Black men (incredulously): “Ice cream?!?”
Browne: “Yes, ice cream! Colored man’s ice cream: WATERMELON!!”

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Offended yet? Yeah we are too, but here’s the rest of the details to further jack up our childhood memories:
1. The melody of the song is almost as old as America itself. It was probably first heard in the British song “The (Old) Rose Tree” before becoming “Turkey in the Straw” in the 19th century, but it became popular because of black-face minstrel shows.

2. In the 1820s, the song was rewritten as “Zip Coon,” a song about a black-face character by the same name and “the character…propelled minstrel shows to the height of their popularity.” According to NPR this is how “Nigg*r Love a Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!” ended up playing in ice cream trucks around the country, opposed to “Turkey in the Straw” or “Do Your Ears Hang Low?”:
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“19th century ice cream parlors played the popular minstrel songs of the day…A music box was installed in [ice cream trucks] as a way to announce their presence in neighborhoods. Naturally, the traditional minstrel tunes of the previous century were employed to evoke the memorable parlor experience.”

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So all this time, our childhood memories of running to the ice cream truck to get Drumsticks and Rainbow Pops has now been tainted, but all hope is not lost though.

Some folks may be confused by this news and might be thinking “Oh, so ice cream trucks are racist now?” NO not at all! Let’s be clear: We’re not saying that we should ban ice cream trucks, nor forget all of the beautiful memories we have of it. The ice cream song is racist, NOT the ice cream…so let’s continue to enjoy the tasty treats every Summer, but just like the Old School saying goes: “What’s done in the dark, always comes to the light” and this ice cream truck song has just gotten it’s light switch flipped on. We need conversation like this so that we are not continuing to live in the dark and so that we all have a greater understanding of one another, which will allow us to continue to push the American culture forward.

Flip the page to actually listen to the REAL song with the original lyrics that Columbia Records released in 1916.