"Shortnin' Bread" is the 2nd song from The Residents "Black Barry" Suite. It is best known for being featured in their live show Cube-E , which toured internationally between 1989 and 1990. This cover acts as the true opening to the "Black Barry" suite. Even though both Buckaroo Blues and The Baby King are mostly covers, this suite features the most original music with this song being the only cover on the suite.
History[]
With "Shortnin' Bread" being the only cover in the Black Barry suite, it has quite a dense history. The song was first written as a poem by James Whitcomb Riley, who either came up with the song or wrote it as a parody of an earlier African-American plantation song. Shortening bread itself is bread made out of cornmeal and lard shortening and is stereotypically associated with African Americans of the early 1900s with character such as Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth.
One of many racist photos of "Shortnin' Bread"
With this being a parody of African Americans in the 1900s, it is painfully racist with the original poem featuring extremely crude English found in many blackface and minstrel performances. Even with this racist origin, it has grown to be a well-known kids song in The Residents generation with it being featured in many cartoons as well as various racist baking products that use the song for marketing purposes. [1] With its popularity and its political significance, the song was covered many times before The Residents chose to. Perhaps the most famous cover was when Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys finally convinced the band to cover it after allegedly recording dozens of versions of the tune by himself.
When it finally came time to make Black Barry, The Residents were already well aware of the racism found in the song and choose to cover it from a meta point of view. The Residents likely feel very similar to Charles Mingus who said in his cover of the song "Who said Mammy's little baby love shortnin' bread. That's some lie an American white man said." [2]
Background[]
This cover acts as the true opening to the "Black Barry" suite. Even though both Buckaroo Blues and The Baby King are mostly covers, this suite features the most original music with this song being the only cover on the suite. The song itself is a much more aggressive version of the original song with the lyrics being almost unintelligible because of the singing residents screaming. As a direct segue from "The Gospel Truth" it also features some of the samples from that song as well as some electric guitar.
It is unknown exactly when this song was made and there is sadly no studio recording of it. It was played live in every single Cube-E show once it was fully developed on July 21st, 1989. It was first released alongside a live recording of Buckaroo Blues on a UWEB cassette exclusive. This tape famously excludes the 3rd act of the show but was released on the "Cube-E pREServed box" giving this tape a CD release for the first time in over 30 years. Despite not being considered the "hit" off of the suite The Residents choose this song to be featured on their box set "80 Aching Orphans". The version is different then the version found on the pREServed box with the recording coming from the "Live In Holland" album instead of the more definitive Cube-E (Box Set) release.
Controversy[]
This song and performance as a whole sparked a lot of controversy among fans. Despite The Residents' good intentions, this performance leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many. The performers portray African Americans by wearing costumes with stereotypical clothing from that time while singing a song originally intended for black-face performances. Many fans argue that even though this performance is a reflection of slavery, it's still in poor taste to do what many would call blackface. Hardy Fox of the Residents has sensed this by directly responding to a fan in his Hacienda Bridge newsletter. While discussing and reflecting on Barack Obama's second term as president and the inauguration of Donald Trump, Hardy included a "QnA" portion of this political commentary.
"Q. Has there ever been any discomfort over The Residents presenting potentially racist material like The Third Reich N Roll or Black Barry?" Hardy responded to this by saying this.
"The History of American Music in 3 E-Z Pieces did have a section, number 2 in the 3 pieces that recognized the importance of African American music in creating the unique music of the USA. There is no way to skip that influence and there is no way of pretending that slavery didn't happen, as much as it is a distasteful fact. At no point was anything in the show presented from a belittling perspective, only as a positive influence on music."
Even with this official statement, Black Barry and many other residents' projects still have their controversies. Thankfully, for this project there were no reported cases of anything hateful happening to African Americans because of Cube-E.
Lyrics[]
It's quite common for Residents fans to use Ima Buddy's lyrics book to determine what The Singing Resident is saying but their book appears to have a big mistake. In almost every version of the song including the original it always uses the word "baby" to refer to the main characters kids. Uniquely whatever source Ima Buddy is using switches some uses of "baby" for the N-word. Even though The Residents have said the N-word onstage before there are no live versions of this song where The Residents use the N-word.
Put on de skillet, put on de led Mammy's gonna make a little Shortenin' Bread That ain't all she gonna do Mammy's gonna make a little coffee, too Mammy's little baby loves shortenin', shortenin', Mammy's little baby loves shortenin' bread. Two little baby's lyin' in de bed One of 'em sick an de odder 'mos dead I sent for de doctor, de doctor said Feed dem chillun' on shortenin' bread. Slipped in de kitchen, kicked off de led, Filled my pockets full o' shortenin' bread. I stole de skillet, stole de led, Stole da gal makin' shortenin' bread.[3]
Releases[]
- Buckaroo Blues & Black Barry (1989) [Version 1]
- Cube-E - Live In Holland (1990) [Version 2]
- In Memoriam Torso (1994) [Version 2]
- Cube-E (2006) [Version 3]
- 80 Aching Orphans (2017) [Version 2]
- Cube-E Box (2020) [Version 1] [Version 3]