Talk:Take the "A" Train

message: The title is almost always (album covers, songbooks, ect.) given as Take the “A” Train, with the A in quotation marks. Should we move the article? — Mütze 12:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move to [[Take the “A” Train]]? 

message: According to an official web site, http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/records/html/newsletter/june2004.html
"New York, New York" is the official song of the city.
Unless you can document otherwise, the statement should be deleted.
Jim Demers
NYC  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.246.216.100 (talk) 02:29, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Official song of NYC? 

message: On viewing "The Glenn Miller Story" on my local cable channel, having seen it it for the first time, ever, last week (I was never, ever interested in the late Mr. Miller's work, as I've found his compositions to be not so much Jazz as popular composition passing as Jazz), I wasn't aware until now that the lyrics of "Chattanooga CHoo Choo" were obviously racist\JIm Crow references. Of what little I discerned, I thought the utterances were "Pardon me, B-O-Y-S,\...is it right down the line, oh, won't you give me the time?" (As I said totally disinterested in Mr. Miller, unless I heard his works in passing.) Obviously, Mr. Mr. Miller was also an opportunist, in that, after he made his breakthrough composition "Moonlight Serenade", he sweated to sustain his popularity.  One sure way to do this was by curriying favor with the racist white majority, especially in the South. Whenever Blacks in the U.S. came up with an innovation in entertainment, White, hostile and jealous of these, frantically sought out a "Great White Hope" who could hopelly trump the Negro at his own talent by mimicking him (no easy task, as many white band-leaders resorted to theft-as in the case of Paul Whitehead-where they were shown to not have had any great writing or arranging acumen; to say nothing of improvsational talent). I do believe that Miller was also sensitive to the fact that he might have been perceived as a "white negro", playing, and cavorting with blacks (E. Presley had the same concerns, ergo his hostile statememnts against the very peoples' music and culture he mimicked).  As I said before,Miller was not a Jazz composer.
Another question arises that I wish others would start a discussion.  Was Miller's adoption of "Chattanooga ChooChoo" a racist response to Billy Strayhorn and Duke Elligton's "Take the 'A' Train"? Of course, in the latter's lyrics, the compo was a homage to the popularity of Harlem, New York City, so I surmised that "Choo Choo" was a 'response song' to the former.  The 'reponse song' was a staple of African American music in Jazz and, more prominently, Rhythm and Blues.
One last obsevation: Though Miller's "Choo Choo" was awarded top honors among the ASCP's rating system. I see no corresponding recording for Ellington's "A' Train".  Why is this?  --69.119.72.13 (talk) 07:48, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure what much of the point of that was, but "boys" was a common mode of address from one man to a group of men in informal contexts without any regard to race.  I think that the racist "boy"-instead-of-Mr.-Tibbs type of address was used more often in singular than plural... AnonMoos (talk) 16:10, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compare With Chattanooga Choo Choo 

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thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion