Talk:Black Strap Molasses

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A fact from Black Strap Molasses appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 15 July 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the song Black Strap Molasses – sung by Groucho Marx, Jimmy Durante, Jane Wyman, and Danny Kaye – was banned by CBS Radio on the grounds that it contained medical advice?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/July. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Black Strap Molasses (song).

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DYK[edit]

This would make a great DYK:

...that CBS Radio banned the song "Black Strap Molasses" on the grounds it contained medical advice?

E Eng 05:48, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Misc[edit]

~~I think the article needs to say something brief about what blackstrap molasses is.~~ [Changed my mind -- the link to Blackstrap molasses is enough]]
According to Molasses#Blackstrap_molasses, the song parodies the health claims, and "someone" should chase that down and clarify it in the article if possible.

{signed) Assigner of Tasks

Yeah, I put that there so this page wouldn't be an orphan. Its sourcing is frankly bad: the quote only notes that the song ascribes "absurd attributes" to molasses, and it's not written by anything like a music critic. The Billboard review says it's "designed for the Gaylord Hauser 'Live Longer' set." There are some unRS online saying it's a parody (this analysis, and an Amazon review or something). The "free plugs" article seems to imply people didn't get the joke.

Irony in music is often overlooked, but it's obvious from the lyrics here IMO. One verse runs, "I used to be thinner than a pencil line/ Had no muscles and I had no spine/ But now I'm friskier than a pup/ All ya gotta do is prop me up"; in another, Marx says he used to be insomniac; "But since I'm eating right I feel okay/ I'm sleeping every night and half the day". But of course that's OR, even if linking the lyrics wasn't forbidden by WP:ELNEVER.

I'm pretty sure the only reliable interpretive literature I haven't seen and mined yet is The Marx Brothers Encyclopedia, which says something which is invisible online, and which I'm ordering through Hollis. In the absence of anything useful from that, I should probably go fix that. FourViolas (talk) 18:31, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ordering? It's on the shelf. I hope you're not becoming one of these Scan&Deliver lazybones. Go get it yourself, and browse nearby volumes while you're at it. Your true education will come not in the lecture hall, but over meals in the dining hall and in the stacks of Widener. E Eng 20:25, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]