I've always loved the song, and never even considered teh race issue.

DURHAM, N.H. - A ’70s rock song used to rally fans at University of New Hampshire hockey games for perhaps a decade, “Black Betty,” is no more.

Athletic Director Marty Scarano told the campus newspaper The New Hampshire that the rollicking 1977 song by Ram Jam was banned because it is “theoretically racist.”

The NAACP deemed the Ram Jam version of the old song offensive to black women three decades ago, and UNH has received intermittent complaints about it for years, the Concord Monitor reported yesterday.

Two years ago, a student group that studied diversity at the school said it should be banned. Scarano said a more recent complaint pushed him to outlaw it, but he did not say who complained.

Dominated by repetitive “na-na-na-na-nas,” “bam-ba-lams” and the exclamation “Black Betty!” the song has been played at the starts of the second and third periods of UNH hockey games for more than a decade, according to a school Web site.

I'm offended by the ban -- I guess that means they will have to ban the ban on "Black Betty".

Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)
Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)
Black Betty had a child (Bam-ba-Lam)
The damn thing gone wild (Bam-ba-Lam)
She said, "I'm worryin' outta mind" (Bam-ba-Lam)
The damn thing gone blind (Bam-ba-Lam)
I said Oh, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)
Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)

Oh, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)
Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)
She really gets me high (Bam-ba-Lam)
You know that's no lie (Bam-ba-Lam)
She's so rock steady (Bam-ba-Lam)
And she's always ready (Bam-ba-Lam)
Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)
Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)

Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)
Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)
She's from Birmingham (Bam-ba-Lam)
Way down in Alabam' (Bam-ba-Lam)
Well, she's shakin' that thing (Bam-ba-Lam)
Boy, she makes me sing (Bam-ba-Lam)
Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)
Whoa, Black Betty BAM-BA-LAM

By the way, if anyone bothered to check, the song is the product of that great ofl bluesman, Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter.

Posted by: Greg at 03:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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