Please Mr Postman
Forty-odd years of enjoying this classic by the Marvelettes (and the inevitable follow-up, given the intervening hit of Chubby Checker, Twistin' Postman) and it has never occurred to me until...
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Mailman is what I've always heard, except in songs. Artistic license, I suppose, or perhaps dialect.
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Movie titles too: "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and hilariously bad "The Postman" with Kevin Costner. You will occasionally hear "postman" in ordinary American speech, although "mailman" is...
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The simple noun and verb, "the post" (the postal service) and "to post" (to mail a letter using the postal service) are almost unknown here. You won't get an odd look if you say "postman," but if you...
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I think I may have been an adult before I ever heard postman, it was always mailman.Then the postal persons quickly became women. I recall that the last time I saw, or talked with a USPS person who...
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Faldage is right in wondering about dialect. I talked once w/ Gladys Horton, the REAL writer of the song -from the Inskster projects in Detroit-(credit was stolen by Motown moguls). I should have...
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I still hear "post a letter" on rare occasions, though I wouldn't use it, myself.As for the US Postal Service in Omaha, Nebraska, workers say "mail carriers", now. Mailman was dropped at least 15...
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Just asked a friend from Jamaica-they say postman,not mailman, as I suspected.At the end of "Playboy," Gladys sings "he's bringin' me false joy,"(w/ Jamaican accent) as the song fades.
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Wonderful background, doc!I almost wore this platter away with playing it when it first came out, along with Mashed Potato Time by Dee Dee Sharp.
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aldi-well ,you like "Mashed Potato Time" because its melody was lifted from "Postman." Cameo Parkway was into song stealing-this was one of many lawsuits they lost.
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Fascinating. There's a discussion in this forum on the subject, from which I extract the following:What I do know is that Kal Mann and Bernie Lowe of Cameo Parkway records used to buy the latest hit...
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Motown isn't the only group to do this. Billy Joel put out a song in the 80s that was one of Chopin's Nocturnes (and I'm sure he knew that) but he didn't give credit to anyone but himself for the...
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The most famous modern instance, I think, is George Harrison's My Sweet Lord, which must have had the Chiffons choking on their cornflakes when they heard it. (It's identical to He's So Fine). I think...
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Actually it's a long story-but Ronnie Mack wrote(not Chiffons) it & died soon later.-Allan B Klein (the ex-Beatle manager) sued George & won. But he really netted zero. I'm sure there are full...
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This Rian Malan article is the best account I know of the workings of the music business in relation to a single tune and how its creator got ripped off. Long but well worth the read. "It is one of...
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I'd say it is more of a miracle when someone creative isn't ripped off by the music industry. For a surprisingly coherent (given her reputation) take on the current state of affairs, Courtney Love has...
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I had always wondered about "Make 'Em Laugh," from Singin' in the Rain. It sounded an awful lot like "Be a Clown" from The Pirate. Then I saw something on TV about movie songs, and Arthur Freed...
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I guess it's not stealing when you plagiarize yourself.But they were plagiarizing Cole Porter. The Straight Dope.
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