Talk:Yakety Yak

	R&B and Soul Music portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject R&B and Soul Music, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of R&B and Soul Music articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.R&B and Soul MusicWikipedia:WikiProject R&B and Soul MusicTemplate:WikiProject R&B and Soul MusicR&B and Soul Music articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Songs

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Songs, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of songs on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SongsWikipedia:WikiProject SongsTemplate:WikiProject Songssong articles

In popular media[edit]

Shouldn't it be mentioned of this songs uses in popular media? It was one of the more popular music videos on Tiny Toon Adventures (featuring Plucky Duck and his dad), and the theme song of Yakkity Yak (among others). TJ Spyke 18:36, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't Arnold Schwartzenegger sing this song, too loud, with headphones on in the airplane, in "Twins"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.2.177.93 (talk) 21:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yakety Yak was also mentotioned a numerous amount of times in The Watsons go to birmingham -1963 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.124.169.64 (talk) 03:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Beneath the humor, Leiber and Stoller songs often made incisive points about American culture, largely by lampooning racial stereotypes." - What? Has this person even listened to the song? It mentions nothing like that, I would liken it to the beastie boys you got to fight for your right to party, not a negro spiritual... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.18.177.11 (talk • contribs) 18:10, 29 April 2010

It's a true statement about Leiber & Stoller songs, especially those written for the Coasters (and, earlier, the Robins). Whether it's true about "Yakety Yak" is another matter. The quote was cited from a 2005 article about a Robert Christgau lecture on the Coasters at the EMP Pop Conference. The title of the article was "Yakety Yak," but the article wasn't about the song; it was an appropriately Coasters-related joke for a piece that was talking about talking about music. One could argue that Leiber & Stoller were presenting what they conceived as a black teenage perspective on white teenage life, but even if that's true, it's a stretch to attach the Matos quote to this Wikipedia article. Pstoller (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

The purest racist claptrap[edit]

"... an experience very familiar to a white teenager of the day. Leiber has said the Coasters portrayed “a white kid’s view of a black person’s conception of white society.”[2] The serio-comic street-smart “playlets” etched out by the songwriters were sung by the Coasters with a sly clowning humor. The screaming saxophone of King Curtis filling in hot, honking bursts in the up tempo doo-wop style. The group was openly theatrical in style—they were not pretending to be expressing their own experience.[4] The threatened punishment for not taking out the garbage and sweeping the floor in the song's humorous lyrics:[5] "You ain't gonna rock and roll no more", and the refrain: "Yakety yak, Don't talk back." Beneath the humor, Leiber and Stoller songs often made incisive points about American culture, largely by lampooning racial stereotypes.[4]".

Bullshit. What is wrong with you Usanians? You condemn racism ex cathedra but steep yourselves in it at every opportunity, rolling in the manner of pigs in shit. Do you really think black and white parents want different things for their children? It's a friggin song and funny. Relax and enjoy... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Captainbeefart (talk • contribs) 14:02, 8 November 2011

Nothing in the article implied that black and white parents want different things for their kids. However, the black middle class was virtually non-existant in 1958, so it's not "racist" to describe a late-1950s American middle-class experience as being fundamentally "white." As for Leiber's comment about what the Coasters portrayed: you're free to find it offensive, but since he was one of the people responsible for forming the group and he wrote the lyrics to all their best-known songs—including "Yakety Yak"—his comment is relevant and remains in the article where it belongs. Pstoller (talk) 22:38, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Number-one singles in the United States[edit]

Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars has removed Category:Number-one singles in the United States on the grounds that it's implied by Category:Billboard Top 100 number-one singles. I'm fine with this, if it reflects Wikipedia policy. Can anyone (including Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars) offer clarity on this? Such a policy does not appear to have been implemented with any consistency. Pstoller (talk) 00:44, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question of Authorship Raised by American Idol Contestant[edit]

A few people have begun editing the "songwriters" field to substitute or add "Jack Hammer" after Hammer's daughter, Amelia Hammer Harris, claimed her father wrote the song during the interview portion of her audition for American Idol. Here's the scoop:

The confusion stems from two different songs with almost identical titles. Leiber & Stoller wrote the well-known hit "Yakety Yak" (the subject of this article) for the Coasters, who recorded it in March 1958, issued on Atco in April. That same April, Jack Hammer wrote "Yakkity Yak" (note the spelling), which was recorded by the Markeys and issued as a b-side in May. That record itself is of sufficient obscurity that, when people hear the title, they automatically think it's the Coasters song. A third song, "Yakety Yak," was written by Reece Fleming and George Mashburn in 1954, with a recording released as a B-side by Mac & Jake (Malcolm Yelvington and Jake Ryles) with the Esquire Trio in 1955. It, too, is obscure.

Ms. Harris made an understandable error, given that she was born in the early 1990s, didn't know her father well, and—like many people—didn't know there was more than one song with the same title. My question is, should this be addressed in the article; and, if so, how? Pstoller (talk) 20:48, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]