Dan Pashman: This episode contains mature subject matter.

Dan Pashman: Who is Bessie Smith addressing when she sings about her jelly roll? 

Courtney Thorsson: Anyone who she’s attracted to, male or female. As she puts it, "Nobody can bake a sweet jelly roll like mine", so she’s using this kinda domestic, feminized metaphor of baking a cake, right, for her sexual desirability and skill, I like a lot.

[DESTINY’S CHILD “BOOTYLICIOUS”]

[“MUST BE JELLY CAUSE JAM DON’T SHAKE LIKE THAT”] 

[PUBLIC ENEMY “CAN”T DO NUTTIN” FOR YA MAN”] 

[THE FLAMING LIPS “SHE DON’T USE JELLY”] 

[GALANTIS “PEANUT BUTTER JELLY”]

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful, it’s not for foodies it’s for eaters, I’m Dan Pashman. Each week on our show we obsess about food to learn more about people. Today’s show is all about a food that has a long and important history in music: Jelly.

[GALANTIS “PEANUT BUTTER JELLY”]

Dan Pashman: Why jelly? Well it is a fun and delicious food, but more importantly, as you’ll hear, jelly has been referenced in tons of songs across decades and genres, often with special significance in the Black community. When it comes to jelly and music, there’s a lot to talk about.

Dan Pashman: So, let’s start with some ground rules. We’re talking today about songs that reference jelly the food, or that use jelly the food as a metaphor. Which means ...we’re not talking about this song…

[VAN MORRISON “AND IT STONED ME”] 

Dan Pashman: Because Van Morrison is only referencing the great jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton. And we will not be discussing this song:

[THE MOUNTAIN GOAT “JAM EATER BLUES”] 

Dan Pashman: Or this song …

[PATTI LABELLE “LADY MARMALADE”] 

Dan Pashman: This of course is "Lady Marmalade", but we aren’t talking about marmalade, or marmalade, or jam. We’re talking about jelly! 

Dan Pashman: You know, they’re all made by cooking fruit with sugar, they’re all thickened by the natural pectin in the fruits, and often by adding additional pectin, which is a carbohydrate found in plants.

Dan Pashman: The difference between jam, jelly, and the like is mostly in how big the pieces of fruit are that you leave in there. Preserves have large pieces of fruit, or the whole fruits. Jam has pieces of fruit chopped or crushed or pureed in. Marmalade is typically made from citrus and has peels in it. 

Dan Pashman: But to make jelly, you cook the fruit with sugar and then strain out all the fruit. The hallmark of jelly is that it is transparent. And the hallmark of a song about jelly is that it refers to that very specific, no bits or pieces, almost-see-through-it spread. 

[CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS “YOUR BABY AIN’T SWEET LIKE MINE”] 

[BOB MARLEY “GUAVA JELLY”] 

Dan Pashman: So today we’re looking at the jelly musical canon, but we’re not just looking at it: by the end of the episode, we’re going to contribute our own song to it. Yes, an original Sporkful composition. But for that, we need some help.

Dan Pashman: Hey, John. 

John DeLore: Hi, Dan.

Dan Pashman: Can you just like introduce yourself to Sporkful listeners, like what's your title. How do you want to be identified? 

John DeLore: My name is the Reverend John DeLore.

Dan Pashman: John DeLore is an extremely talented audio producer, editor, and engineer. He and I have been colleagues at a few different audio companies over the years. He’s also a musician …

Dan Pashman: That's like that's where you're the Reverend John DeLore you record under the name the Reverend John DeLore. 

John DeLore: That’s correct.

Dan Pashman: And you write music. 

John DeLore: Mm-hmm. 

Dan Pashman: You understand melody ...

John DeLore: Mm-hmm. 

Dan Pashman: Tempo. 

John DeLore: Correct. 

Dan Pashman: Harmony?

John DeLore: Yes. 

Dan Pashman: Here's what's going on John. All right?

John DeLore: [LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: We're doing a Sporkful episode where we take a food that has been referenced in many songs ... 

John DeLore: Okay. 

Dan Pashman: Across many genres in many years.

John DeLore: Okay. 

Dan Pashman: And then we want the whole episode to culminate with an original song about the food. 

John DeLore: Hmm. Hmm, Hm, hm. So you want me to ask one of my friends to write it?

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING] 

John DeLore: Before I say yes to this, Dan, I think it's important that I find out what the food item is. 

Dan Pashman: Right, because you're an artist.

John DeLore: Right. I don't just give my work away or to say yes to anything. 

Dan Pashman: No, I understand. You have very high standards. 

Dan Pashman: Okay. All right. You ready?

 John DeLore: Mm-hmm. 

Dan Pashman: The food ... is ... jelly. 

John DeLore: Mmm.

Dan Pashman: John begrudgingly says yes to the assignment, so we leave him to it. Now it’s time for us to look at the history of jelly in music. Most of the well known jelly songs got popular because they’re performed by famous singers or bands. But there’s one jelly-related track that took a different path to stardom.

Dan Pashman: And that song? Well, there’s a bit of a story to that one.

Dan Pashman: Kevin describe yourself in college. 

Kevin Flynn: Myself in college…. You know, it's funny, I was actually fairly shy 

Dan Pashman: Like many a young introvert, Kevin Flynn spent a lot of his time online.

Kevin Flynn: It was a group of online friends and we were in this you know old I.R.C. channel. And this guy simply had this thing on his hard drive forever.

Dan Pashman: It was a song.

Kevin Flynn: He's like You know this funny weird old song. So I think that if I think back I believe the earliest I've heard it was probably 1996. 

Dan Pashman: And that's like in an Internet chat room. 

Kevin Flynn: Exactly, yeah. It was in an Internet chat room.

Dan Pashman: Were you like using Prodigy or AOL to access this chat room? Like was it a dial up connection? r

Kevin Flynn: Yeah, a Prodigy member. Dial up on Prodigy? 

[LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: So we're talking like a stone age. Internet stone ages. 

Kevin Flynn: Oh yeah. And you know I specifically remember it took me like two and a half hours to download the song.  

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: A few years later, Kevin was in college. It was 1 or 2 in the morning and he was very drunk.

Kevin Flynn: I remember it perfectly and I don't know how, because like I said I was blitzed. I was in my little studio apartment over by San Diego State. I was sitting at my desk which was overlooking a little courtyard, drinking, you know laughing with friends and I found you know the old .mp3 I loaded it up and I just thought, let's let's do something funny with this. 

[DJ CHIPMAN AND THE BUCKWHEAT BOYZ “ PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME”] 

Kevin Flynn: It was literally I'm gonna make this banana dance to the theme of this awful song and it almost just came together where the first half, it went exactly along with the beat of the music. 

[DJ CHIPMAN AND THE BUCKWHEAT BOYZ “ PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME”] 

Kevin Flynn: And it was literally just throwing that together in flash you know with the cheesy pixelated graphics and the cheesy pixelated banner and that was kind of it. You know, this wasn't like a Mona Lisa creation. This was like an hour.

Dan Pashman: Kevin took his low fi video of a banana dancing to an inane song about peanut butter and jelly, threw it on a couple of message boards for laughs, and went to bed. 

[DJ CHIPMAN AND THE BUCKWHEAT BOYZ “ PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME”] 

Kevin Flynn: Like two or three days later AT&T actually called and I still remember they basically were like, "What in the hell are you doing. You guys have moved like two and a half terabytes of data in the past 24 hours. What is going on?"

Dan Pashman: We’re talking two and a half terabytes in 2001! My whole computer back then had 850 MB of memory.

Kevin Flynn: I think at the time they thought we were like pirating something.

Dan Pashman: Pretty quickly, the viral hit got out of hand.

Kevin Flynn: I went through it. It was chaotic. It was crazy. You know, it was kind of fun. It was also kind of annoying, you know, just people contacting you 24/7. You know people finding your phone number.

Dan Pashman: At the time, Kevin was chatting with an online crush, a San Diego State classmate he hadn’t met in person. They started talking before the viral video, and she watched everything unfold.

Kevin Flynn: She was kind of in the same boat which is, what in the hell? Like what is this thing? And you know, I think she definitely helped me, where I'm like, I don't now what's going on. And then I would say probably within a year of it becoming popular, we ended up meeting. 

Dan Pashman: Meanwhile, the dancing banana’s fame kept growing. It was featured on an NBC show called Ed. Then the FOX show Family Guy wanted to use it. FOX needed the rights to the song as well as the dancing banana, so they reached out to the original group that made "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" back in the 90’s, DJ Chipman and the Buckwheat Boyz. 

Dan Pashman: The track didn’t get a lot of love when it was first released, and by this time the group had broken up. At least one band member had passed away. FOX called all over Florida, where the group was based, and they finally found the guy with the rights to the song.

Kevin Flynn: This guy said, “I don’t give an F what you do with that effing song. And hung up on them.”

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

[FAMILY GUY CLIP] 

CLIP (BRIAN): Aw, don't feel bad, Peter. Hey, I know what'll cheer you up. 

CLIP (PETER): I don't think I'm in the mood. 

CLIP (BRIAN): Are you sure? 

CLIP (BRIAN): [SINGS “PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME”] 

CLIP (PETER): Sorry, Brian. It's just not doing it today. 

Dan Pashman: Today, Time Magazine estimates that Kevin’s video has been viewed a billion times. It’s one of the most widely circulated internet memes in history. Kevin only ever made money off the licensing deal with Family Guy. But he’s gone on to a successful career making video games. His license plate reads: PBJ TIME.

Dan Pashman: Why a banana?

Kevin Flynn: I just thought it was funny. 

[LAUGHING] 

Kevin Flynn: It's just kind of — it's kind of went, you know? You know the irony is I hate bananas. 

Dan Pashman: Really? 

Kevin: I truly do. I hate the smell of banana. [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: How do you feel about peanut butter and jelly? 

Kevin Flynn: I am a fan. I'm a big peanut butter and jelly fan. 

Dan Pashman: How do you like peanut butter and jelly?

Kevin Flynn: I like it chunky.

Dan Pashman: Chunky. And how do you layer the ingredients?

Kevin Flynn: Usually, one side peanut butter the other side jelly and you just kind of mash the ingredients together. 

Dan Pashman: Which side up? 

Kevin: Peanut butter. 

Dan Pashman: Why?

Kevin: I don't know. Is there a right way? 

Dan Pashman: Funny you should ask … 

[LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: I actually argue, Kevin for a thin layer of jelly on top and bottom with peanut butter in the middle.

Kevin Flynn: Really?

Dan Pashman: You get jelly on the bottom, which lands on your tongue, it accentuates the sweetness without having to add too much sugar. But also jelly on top which coats the roof of your mouth so that the peanut butter doesn't stick to it. 

Kevin Flynn: Interesting. I'll have to try that.

Dan Pashman: There is one last part of Kevin’s story. Remember that college crush, the one he met online, who helped him keep it together when the PBJ Time video was blowing up? 

Kevin Flynn: We started dating and then, you know, we ended up married. And we’ve been married for coming up on 13 years. We did Halloween at my house this year and I — you know I park my car out front, so obviously you know the license plate on the car is "PBJ TIME". And I kid you not. We had twenty five kids that came to the door that started singing "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" as soon as we opened the door. And you know, because apparently you know obviously they saw the license plate and then word spread through the school that, oh this is a peanut butter jelly time guy. And it's just is shocking to me, you know, these 10, 12, you know, 13-year-olds still know it and still are entertained by it. 

Dan Pashman: So Kevin we're doing this episode. It's really all about jelly. 

Kevin Flynn: Yes. 

Dan Pashman: And we are ending this episode with an original musical composition that as of the conversation you and I are having right now, has not been written. 

Kevin Flynn: I'm excited.

Dan Pashman: So help us out. Kevin give us a lyric, a jelly related lyric that we need to incorporate into our song. 

Kevin Flynn: Oh my God. Can we talk about your new invention?

Dan Pashman: Okay, so you want to reference to to jelly on the bottom and jelly on the top, double jelly. 

Kevin Flynn: I do. I think double jelly is the way to go. I think — I'm fascinated by this. I'm actually — I'm gonna tell my wife as soon as I'm done here. Let's try this for lunch, I wanna try this double jelly.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Kevin FLynn: I'm scared and I'm fascinated by it. 

Dan Pashman: All right. If meme comes out of this I get a cut, Kevin, just so we're clear. 

Kevin Flynn: Okay. All right. 

[LAUGHS] 

[DJ CHIPMAN AND THE BUCKWHEAT BOYZ “ PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME”]

Dan Pashman: So you get the idea of what we’re doing here. And yes, there are still a lot of jelly references in music we still have to cover. 

Dan Pashman: But meanwhile, we need a song of our own. Kevin gave us the lyric “double jelly.” But that’s a far cry from a song. We need a lot more than that. 

Dan Pashman: All right, Anne, Ngofeen, Sporkful producers extraordinaire.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: What up? [LAUGHS]  

Dan Pashman: What's wrong? 

Anne Saini: I gotta lower that level there. 

Dan Pashman: Oh. What are you guys bringing to the table here? What can we count on you for? We're putting a band together. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: I'm bringing some light pipes. [LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: Okay. All right. All right.

Anne Saini: What does that mean? 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Also, known as singing. 

Dan Pashman: Okay. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: La la la la la. [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: Great. Anne, what can we count on you for? 

Anne Saini: Oh, I play a pretty mean rhythm guitar. 

Dan Pashman: Oh! All right! 

Anne Saini: Dating back to things that we will not talk about. 

Dan Pashman: Didn't you play like a Beatles cover band? 

Anne Saini: That's right. 

Dan Pashman: All right. All right. We're getting the band back together. 

[LAUGHING] 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: All in the name of jelly.

Dan Pashman: There's just one important thing we've got to do if we can really put this band together and start working on the song. We have to pick a musical genre.

Anne Saini: Mmm.

Dan Pashman: So we've had some internal conversations. We've narrowed it down to a list of four genres that we think would be good that we could hope maybe possibly mediocrely really pull off.  And it would make it. And we've narrowed it down to four genres that we think we could pull off to a least a only somewhat embarrassing level of quality.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm-hmm. That's all we need. And that also will make for good songs. Yeah. 

Anne Saini: We have high standards.  

Dan Pashman: So we have ... 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: I'm writing this down on a piece of paper, pop, disco, bluegrass, showtunes. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm-hmm. Right. 

Dan Pashman: So I've written them on piece of paper. And I'm gonna — [RIPPING PAPER] tear them into squares. Again, the options are disco, show tunes, bluegrass Americana, and pop. 

[RATTLING SOUND] 

Dan Pashman: That's the paper ball. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Can you shake more vigorously? We really want them to mix. 

Dan Pashman: Sure. 

[SHAKING VIGOROUSLY] 

Anne Saini: [LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: All right. Here we go. Here we go. Reach in. Pick it up. Don't open it yet though. 

[HAND DRUM ROLL] 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: I've taken it out. I am unfolding the paper. 

Dan Pashman: All right. 

[UNFOLDING PAPER] 

Anne Saini: Tension is palpable. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: [LAUGHS] 

Anne Saini: I know what it is. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Show tunes.

[LAUGHING]

Anne Saini: Oh no! Oh, I wanted disco! 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: [LAUGHING] 

Anne Saini: No! Can you draw again? 

Dan Pashman: Oh man. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Oh man, this is going to be ... 

Dan Pashman: That is the only one that I was like, no.

[LAUGHING] 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Coming up, we call for musical reinforcements. Stick around.

[JAMES TAYLOR ON SESAME STREET “JELLYMAN KELLY”] 

MUSIC

 

+++ BREAK +++

 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful, I’m Dan Pashman. Hey, in a few weeks I’m moderating a panel at a food festival on Martha’s Vineyard. The whole thing’s called Martha’s Vineyard Flavors. It’s a whole weekend of talks, demonstrations, and delicious meals. And you can buy tickets to just one or a couple parts of the weekend, you don’t have to commit to the whole thing. It’s the first weekend in June, it’s gonna be fun and delicious and if you come, I can promise you'll eat well. So I hope you can be there. Get more info and tickets at MVMuseum.org. We’ll also put a link in the show notes. Thanks.

Dan Pashman: Okay, back to our musical odyssey, and I should say, this episode originally aired a few years ago, back when my friend John DeLore, the audio producer and musician, was working at Stitcher. Remember, he said he would help us write and record our song about jelly. 

Dan Pashman: So I stopped by his desk to check in…

Dan Pashman: So John how’s it coming with the song?

John DeLore: [LAUGHS] What reaction are you looking to get here? The honest one?

Dan Pashman: Yes, the honest one. [LAUGHS] 

John DeLore: You’re killing me. All right, you spun the wheel, you got show tunes. Okay? Like if you would’ve got something easy like folk or something, it’s like an acoustic guitar and vocal, but now you’re talking about like intense rhyme schemes You're talking about a chorus. You know?

Dan Pashman: Do you have anything else you’re working on, John?

John DeLore: Yeah, Dan. Lots of things. Do you think I sit around this office waiting for people to ask for musical numbers?  

Dan Pashman: Clearly, John was excited about our collaboration. So excited in fact that he handed me off to a friend of his.

Dan Pashman: So Allison, are you a fan of jelly?

Allison Leyton-Brown: Love it. It’s my jam.

Dan Pashman: This is Allison Leyton-Brown, she’s a composer. She played me some initial ideas for how the song could go …

[ALLISON LEYTON-BROWN TRYING OUT THE MUSIC]

Allison Leyton-Brown: [HUMMING] Yeah, that kind of — you know, that feel? 

[ALLISON LEYTON-BROWN TRYING OUT THE MUSIC]

Allison Leyton-Brown: Something like that. 

Dan Pashman: So our jelly song is coming along, but there’s still a lot of work to do. In the meantime, there are more jelly songs to cover. Now, look, we knew when we embarked on this odessy, if we’re gonna do this episode, we have to talk about the 2001 hit by Beyonce’s original group, Destiny’s Child. Of course, I’m talking about "Bootylicious" ... 

 [DESTINY’S CHILD "BOOTYLICIOUS"] 

Dan Pashman: Which I think we can agree is one of the greatest jelly-related songs in history.

  [DESTINY’S CHILD "BOOTYLICIOUS"] 

Dan Pashman: I’m sorry, but did you say that you don't like Beyonce?

[RECORD SCRATCH STOP]

Psyche Williams-Forson: Ummm… Let me put it like this. I wouldn't pay to go to a concert. You know? 

Dan Pashman: Got it. 

Psyche Williams-Forson: I don’t turn it off or anything when I hear Beyonce. I’m just not a major fan. 

Dan Pashman: This is Professor Psyche Williams-Forson, chair of the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland College Park and Beyonce skeptic. 

Psyche Williams-Forson: You know I'm about 12 years older. I mean, I’m more of a Jill Scott kind of gal, y’know?

Dan Pashman: Okay, Professor, we can chalk it up to generational differences and forget this moment ever happened. Now, we will get to Bootylicious. But in order to really understand that song, we first have to go way back to 1938, to one of the early references to jelly in recorded music. This is the Hipp Cats:

[THE HIPP CATS “IT MUST BE JELLY”]

Courtney Thorsson: What interests me about this particular recording, you hear that it's a "call and response" between two men talking about woman. 

[THE HIPP CATS “IT MUST BE JELLY”]

Courtney Thorsson: So you get the kind of back and forth. 

Dan Pashman: This is Professor Courtney Thorsson from the University of Oregon, who studies African American literature. She also joined Professor Williams-Forson and me. The two of them, along with three other chefs and professors, wrote a paper about the roles of Black women in food work. 

Dan Pashman: Now, this back and forth in the song, the "call and response", also invokes “The Dozens”, that tradition of going back and forth with burns like, Yo mama jokes, that has a long legacy in Black American culture. But there’s one lyric that really jumps out in this 1938 Hipp Cats song. "It must be jelly because jam don’t shake that way."

Psyche Williams-Forson: It doesn't take a lot of leaps to connect that particular metaphor for two Black women's bodies’ robust behinds and posteriors.

Dan Pashman: Now, some context here. The Hipp Cats’ track came out just as the Harlem Renaissance drew to a close. During the 1920s and 30s, as Black Americans moved from the south to cities, they faced pressure to be "respectable". That pressure to prove their worthiness came from white Americans, but it also came from within the Black community. Black organizations like the National Urban League discouraged Black people from eating certain foods in public, things like fried chicken and watermelon. Because of longstanding stereotypes from white Americans, there was a concern that eating foods by hand would make Black people look backwards, not “respectable”.

Courtney Thorsson: The writers of the Harlem Renaissance are exploring all kinds of avenues of expression, many of which depart quite substantively from politics of respectability. 

Psyche Williams-Forson: Right. And the boundaries of being — I mean Josephine Baker, right? 

Courtney Thorsson: Mm-hmm. 

Psyche Williams-Forson: Let's let's be clear. So we have literature, we have music, we have clothing, we have photography.

Dan Pashman: And these songs using jelly, they fit into this history. These Black musicians are reclaiming the right to talk about bodies and sexuality as they choose, in the face of that pressure to be respectable. 

Dan Pashman: And I did not know until I started researching for this episode how Jelly Roll Morton got his nickname. 

Courtney Thorsson: Mm-hmm, 

Dan Pashman: I — if you would ask me I would have said, oh well probably like he was a kid and he loved jelly rolls and as his grandmother said I'm going to nickname you Jelly Roll and it's just you know and it stuck. 

Psyche Williams-Forson: Mm-hmm. 

Dan Pashman: But am I right that that nickname actually has a very sexual connotation?

Courtney Thorsson: Yes. Are you going to be the one to say it, Dan? 

Dan Pashman: [laughs] 

[LAUGHING]

Dan Pashman: I will be. Look this is a, you know — sure, yes. I mean, it's a reference to a specific part of a woman's anatomy.

Psyche Williams-Forson: Mm-hmm. 

Courtney Thorsson: And his particular skill at oral sex. 

Dan Pashman: Okay. 

Psyche Williams-Forson: Mm-hmm. 

Courtney Thorsson: That’s the apocryphal, sort of in jazz studies, the apocryphal story, like a legend, is that Jelly Roll Morton was named for his skill at performing oral sex on women. 

Psyche Williams-Forson: Mm-hmm. 

Dan Pashman: Well, there you go. 

Dan Pashman: So remember that banjo song I played a bit of earlier with the lyric, “Your baby may roll her jelly fine, nobody’s baby can roll it like mine.” That was one of the examples of jelly being used as a metaphor. In all these winking allusions, Professor Williams-Forson hears more than a clever use of innuendo. She hears people doing something very human, having fun. 

Psyche Williams-Forson: We tend not to think of Black people as willing sexual beings unless they are loose, licentious, over the top, etc. But various forms of sexual expression have been around since the dawn of time. Black people did experience joy.

Courtney Thorsson: Yes.

Psyche Williams-Forson: Right? Even during enslavement and during the Reconstruction Era and Jim Crow and on up through the through the ages. And so different kinds of play on words and metaphors are reflective of some of that joy. And I think that's an important element that we tend to overlook because we're so busy focusing on the licentious element as opposed to the joyful playful elements of Black lives. 

Courtney Thorsson: That’s right. I mean, that is maybe even and especially true for Black women. 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Case in point, the famous blues singer Bessie Smith. She actually uses the jelly metaphor earlier than that 1938 song. This one’s from 1923.

[BESSIE SMITH “NOBODY IN TOWN CAN BAKE A SWEET JELLY ROLL LIKE MINE”]

MUSIC

Courtney Thorsson: But what Smith had done earlier is uses that jelly metaphor not to be the object of men’s talk and gaze but just to assert her own sexual desirability and sexual prowess.

Dan Pashman: Who is Bessie smith addressing when she sings about her jelly roll?

Courtney Thorsson: Anyone who she’s attracted to, male or female. As she puts it, "Nobody can bake a sweet jelly roll like mine," so she’s using this kinda domestic, feminized metaphor of baking a cake, right, for her sexual desirability and skill, I like a lot.

Dan Pashman: So that’s how jelly was used among Black musicians in the 20s and 30s. Then in the 40s, white musicians started using the metaphor. The most famous example comes from the Glenn Miller Orchestra, they’re an all white big band. You may know their song "In The Mood"? 

[GLENN MILLER “IN THE MOOD”] 

Dan Pashman: In 1942 Glenn Miller had a hit with his version of "It Must Be Jelly Cause Jam Don’t Shake Like That". But his has a notable difference, it’s got very few lyrics. Earlier versions had lyrics like, “She's got a shape like Venus, pretty as a rose, where she comes from goodness knows.” Glenn Miller’s take just has this...

[GLENN MILLER ORCHESTRA “IT MUST BE JELLY CAUSE JAM DON’T SHAKE LIKE THAT”] 

CLIP (GLENN MILLER): “Must be jelly cause jam don't shake like that. 

Oh, mama, you're so big and fat ... “ 

Courtney Thorsson: You know whether audiences did receive those very few lyrics as being about sex or not, fat is not necessarily designated as attractive, the way Glenn Miller puts those lyrics.

Psyche Williams-Forson: Right.

Courtney Thorsson: It comes across as maybe silly or pejorative. Whereas there is no question that for the Hopp Cats, for Bessie Smith, for Destiny’s Child, that having an ample body is desirable. It’s celebrating a Black woman’s body as sexy and desirable as “Bootylicious”.  

 [DESTINY”S CHILD “BOOTYLICIOUS”] 

Dan Pashman: And that brings us back to where we started. 2001, "Bootylicious". So what does it mean for Beyonce to sing, "I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly," all those years after Bessie Smith?

[DESTINY”S CHILD “BOOTYLICIOUS”] 

Psyche Williams-Forson: Any time women go against what is a cultural expectation, There's going to be tensions. So part of for me what what Beyonce is doing, we don't know at that moment that she's about to break out, but she knows it. Right? And she knows that in breaking out on her own, part of what has to be contended with is her body. Right? Because Black women's bodies have been criticized down through the ages. She has an idea of the brand that she's about to create and that's a brand that we haven't seen much of since the likes of Josephine Baker who was equally criticized for having a curvaceous body. So part of what to me Beyonce is doing with Bootylicious is breaking out to say, I'm reclaiming Black women's bodies

[DESTINY”S CHILD “BOOTYLICIOUS”] 

Psyche Williams-Forson: She has given so many women, Black women, women of Latina descent, native white women — she's given women the permission to now see themselves on Sports Illustrated and other places and be celebrated for that. And she's done it but she's also following in a long tradition of that having been done. 

[DESTINY”S CHILD “BOOTYLICIOUS”] 

Dan Pashman: So the whole idea of jelly as a stand-in for women's bodies, you can trace it from Bessie Smith to Beyonce. Then, in 2015, the genre took a turn.

[RUPAUL FEAT BIG FREEDIA “PEANUT BUTTER”] 

Courtney Thorsson: If Destiny’s Child was taking back jelly as a term for women describing themselves as desirable, what you get in this track "Peanut Butter" is RuPaul and Big Freedia are using it to claim desirability for LGBTQIA people.

Dan Pashman: There’s more to unpack in this track. It has people playing The Dozens, where RuPaul says, "Your sister’s on the corner selling peanut butter," also, it samples "Peanut Butter Jelly Time". And …

Courtney Thorsson: And it also, like the blues, has the south in it. Right? Big Freedia, New Orleans Bounce queen. The original Peanut Butter is a Miami bass group, right? So they're sampling a Miami group, so it brings the south back in really forcefully.

 [RUPAUL FEAT. BIG FREEDIA “PEANUT BUTTER"] 

Dan Pashman: So Courtney as part of this episode that we're doing on jelly in music, it's used in music, we are going to culminate this episode with an original composition.

Courtney Thorsson: [GASP]

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] That's right. You heard correctly. So we are in the process of trying to write and record a show tune about jelly. Can you give me a lyric that you would like to hear incorporated into our show tune about jelly? Take as much time as you need.

Courtney Thorsson: Thank you. 

[LAUGHING] 

Courtney Thorsson: A lyric for your show tune. Well, I definitely want the word cake in there, and then I guess we’re going to need to get icing in there, too. 

Dan Pashman: So cake because a jelly roll is a type of cake. Why icing?

Courtney Thorsson: So RuPaul’s use of peanut butter is, of course, because it’s spreadable. So icing shares that quality. It seems to me that icing is the next frontier in using the cake metaphor.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: That’s Professor Psyche Williams-Forson, chair of the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland College Park, where she also teaches food studies, and we heard from Professor Courtney Thorsson, from the University of Oregon, whose work focuses on African American literature. Her book is called Women’s Work.

Dan Pashman: Now we’re almost ready for the big finale. While John, Allison, Anne, Ngofeen, and I get ready for the big finale, let's listen to another recent entry into the jelly canon. This is Chance the Rapper's 2019 song "Ballin Flossin."

[CHANCE THE RAPPER “BALLIN’ FLOSSIN”]

Dan Pashman: All right, John. We're back here in studio. Before we get to the song, that you've been working so hard on, I realized I never asked you, do you eve like jelly?

John DeLore: Well, I mean, who doesn't like jelly? 

Dan Pashman: Well, yeah. I mean, most people like it well enough. 

John DeLore: Right. 

Dan Pashman: But I mean, like, maybe some people prefer jam or preserves? 

John DeLore: No, I mean, if you put it that way, I definitely prefer jelly over jams and preserves. 

Dan Pashman: But how much do you really love jelly? 

MUSIC

John DeLore: All I can say, Dan, is … [STARTS SINGING] 

“J-E-L-L-Y (The Jelly Song)”

I give a jar of jam the respect it deserves
And I save a bit of love for those ol’ fruit preserves
But my heart will swerve and lift
If you sift the fruit chunks out
My soul is uncontrollable...as I spread it all about...

Oh, Jelly puts the joy in my joyfullest refrain
Fruit and pectin is my jam, I spread it on my pain
That smooth consistency is the sweetest panacea
Can it be that jelly is the key to keeping sane?

CHORUS:
J-E-L-L-YYYYY
Why do I love it just like Romeo loves Juliet?
J-E-L-L-YYYYY
Why does it set my heart a-flying like a speeding jet?
J-E-L-L-YYYYY
Why does a spread of it on toast or muffin make me sweat?

I’ll tell ya. But I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly yet!

Before peanut butter came along my jelly was just fine
But spread that peanut butter and the combo is sublime
The icing on the cake is the double jelly layers
Make that sandwich mine -- It’s peanut butter jelly time!

CHORUS:
J-E-L-L-YYYYY
Why do I love it just like Romeo loves Juliet?
J-E-L-L-YYYYY
Why does it set my heart a-flying like a speeding jet?
J-E-L-L-YYYYY
Why does a spread of it on toast or muffin make me sweat?

Why? Because!
Jelly is the elemental / essence of a fruit condensed /
Reduced until its effervescence / drives the primal senses senseless
Sealed in jars, my patience tested / pop the top and yes you guessed it!
Jelly simply can’t be bested

J-E-L-L-Y

J-E-L-L-Y

J….E….L….L….YYYYYYYYYY

Jelly can’t be bested!

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: So that happened. Yeah, that happened. First of all, I want to thank the Reverend John DeLore and Allison Leyton-Brown for doing such and incredible job on that song. Now, I know what you're thinking. Dan, how could I listen to that song over and over and over again? Well, you can just hit rewind on this podcast. Or you could go to sporkful.com, because we pulled out the song and posted it by itself on Soundcloud. We've embedded that player in the blogpost for this episode, so you can listen to it there. You can share through social media. You can all your friends about it. Also, in that blog post, we put up a karaoke version of the Jelly Song, so you can go ahead and record yourself singing it. We'll put little lyrics up there, but hey, write your own lyrics. Have fun with it. All I ask is that you share it on social media, tell your friends to check this episode and use the hashtag,#SporkfulOfJelly. 

Dan Pashman: I cannot wait to see your performances popping up on that hastag. I'm going to be checking it. I want to see what you come up with. 

Dan Pashman: So all those goodies, plus a complete list of the songs featured in this episode and our Spotify Jelly playlist, are all in the post for this episode at Sporkful.com.

Dan Pashman: Check out last week's episode, which was partly written for us by ChatGPT.