This isn’t a real post. It was a rambling email I was writing to my sister and then it sort of got away from me and so I decided to flesh it out and share it here because maybe we weren’t the only ones who were taught this song in school. You can ignore it if you want.
When I was little there was this song called “Mama Paquita” that we’d have to sing in music class. According to our music books, it was a 1930’s Brazilian Carnivale song but it was kinda fucked up. It was about some salesman trying to convince a mom to buy her baby a banana, a papaya, some pajamas and a sombrero, but she was like “Who has infant-sombrero money in this economy? Let’s go dancing!” (I’m paraphrasing, but only slightly) and I remember thinking, “Why would a baby need a sombrero?”
(Side-note: I just googled” “Why would you buy a baby a sombrero?” and I got a lot of vaguely racist pictures, and also a link to a poem, which includes the lines “He had heard stories of a baby sombrero wrestler who would one day rule the world, but he had never thought that it would be his son” and “Hey, do you want to go get some soup, and maybe have a baby?” {Which might be the best pick-up line ever. Or worst. Depends on who you’re trying to pick up, I guess.})
Anyway, when I was in third grade I asked the music teacher why we didn’t just sing the original Brazilian song, Mamãe eu Quero, (which I’d memorized from Carmen Miranda movies and old Tom & Jerry cartoons) but she shook her head disdainfully, saying only that there were “too many nipples in that song”.
I was confused about that for years, but in high school I told a friend that I knew the words to a risqué Brazilian nipple song, which I then sang. She knew a little Portuguese, and she told me my song was about breastfeeding and that my pronunciation was atrocious. Then I said, “Oh wait. It gets worse” and I sang her the bastardized English version from my childhood music classes, and she was like, “What kind of racist bullshit is that?” and I said, “The extremely problematic kind taught to small children in the 70’s?”
Then she looked at me in confused bewilderment and I nodded in embarrassed agreement and said, “Honestly, I don’t understand it either. I apologize on the behalf of white people.” (Which is a phrase I should just put on a t-shirt because that shit needs to be said A LOT). She gracefully accepted my apology and offered to teach me how to curse convincingly in Spanish if I agreed to never sing that song again. Our cultural bridge was built on a shared love of profanity, and although I never mastered the accent to her satisfaction, I will forever treasure the phrase: “I SHIT ON EVERYTHING THAT MOVES!” which is easily the best thing to scream when you are stuck in traffic, or when the copier eats your overdue report, or when life is just being an asshole in general.
This was all before the internet existed so I had to take my friend’s word on the translation, but then my sister reminded me of that song again and so I decided to go online to try to translate the Portuguese version.
And here is the (probably horribly butchered) translation:
Mommy I want, mommy I want,
Mommy I want to suckle!
Give the nipple, give the nipple, give the nipple
Give the nipple so your baby won’t cry!Sleep, son of my heart.
Take the bottle and join my dance party.
I have a sister, she’s called Anna.
She blinked so much she lost her eyelashes.I look at the little ones, but this way
I’m sorry I’m not suckling.
I have a sister, she’s phenomenal.
She’s the boss and her husband’s an imbecile.
And now I’m even more confused, and I can’t get the fucked-up English version out of my head. And (if you were also taught it as a small kid) it’s probably stuck in yours too now.
Awesome.
I am part of the problem.
PS. Again, I would like to apologize on the behalf of white people. Seriously. White people fuck shit up for all of us. Including white people. It’s baffling. I’m so sorry. Let’s go get some soup and maybe have a baby.