ARF: Notes and Comments: BURNT WEENY SANDWICH: WPLJ (Dobard/McDaniels)

BURNT WEENY SANDWICH

WPLJ (Dobard/McDaniels)

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The W is the white, the P is the port,
the L is the lemon, the J is the juice.
White port and Lemon Juice ..."

From: cantrell@ssd.intel.com (Jay Cantrell)
WPLJ=WhitePort&LemonJuice, the original California cooler. A co-worker was singing the last Thursday.

From: From: saul+@pitt.edu (Alan Saul)
I quoted this last time WPLJ came up, but here it is again. From Roy Porter's autobiography, "There and Back", 1991, Bayou Press, Wheatley, Oxford, p. 79:

I didn't start dropping "bennies" until I came to Los Angeles in 1944. By that time pot was passe for me because I had never liked the feeling it gave me anyway. Pot (marijuana) made me self-conscious and a bit paranoid. It afforded no relaxation at all, especially while playing my instrument. Pot was good to sit and dig sounds with. Benzedrine was sold in two forms, pills and the inhalers. It was legal to buy the inhalers over the counter, but you were supposed to have a prescription for the pills. The pills were used legally, mainly by airline pilots, bus drivers, etc. - anyone who had to stay alert and awake in their occupation. The inhaler was a different story; anyone could purchase them. The benzedrine was inside the inhaler, saturated in an orange-coloured paper strip. At that time we were drinking Molotov Cocktails, which is white port wine mixed with lemon juice. Man, we would get four or five quarts of white port, buy some inhalers, break them open, put the strips in each bottle of wine, put the wine next to a heater or heat, and let it sit and dissolve for a few days. When you drink that shit, man it will blow your mind, but we would be feeling mellow being loaded for days without any ZZZ's. Cisco knew exactly how long to let it set and dissolve, just like a moonshiner.

Not recommended, folks, just for historical value.

From: pcrane@superior.carleton.ca (Peter Crane)
I think they mean White Porter Lemon Juice--a mixture of wine and lemon juice like the song says--sounds nasty, but you might want to have it with a Burnt Weeny Sandwich.

From: palmer@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (palmer richard allen)
Close: White Port and Lemon Juice. See (hear) the original WPLJ by the Four Deuces, (Music City 790) 1955. Legend has it that the tune began as a jingle the group did for a local merchant (I think a juice company, but it's been years since I heard the story. The point was to sell the juice, or the port, by plugging the combo: "white port and lemon juice, ooh what they do to you!") Anyway, the jingle was played on the local radio and got so much response that someone talked the group into working it up into a full song. It is a classic!

From: tommi@freeport.uwasa.fi (Tommi Uschanov)
The full song was a hit and was only after that adopted into a wine ad jingle, according to notes to Vol. 1 of the two-volume _Music City Records_ anthology on the Swedish Earth Angel label (the label is Swedish, not Earth Angel, named for the Penguins classic!). The wine company was Swiss Colony, BTW. Zappa must have been very familiar with the original in his youth - it was a massive hit on the West Coast, and Music City was based in Berkeley.

Spanish rap transcribed and translated by

r.goetgeluk@frw.ruu.nl (Roland Goetgeluk) girlfriend :-)

corrected by

james@astro.as.utexas.edu (James McCartney) it seems on his own :-)

Por que no consigues tu,	Why don't you reach your,
tu carnal,	your buddy,
que los compres some wine,	to buy some wine,
esa, undele,	eh, come on,
pinchi vato, puto, .... ,	damn dude, faggot
dalgambre (?),
esta ven......... (?))

Dile, por que no merece,	Say it to him, why isn't it worth it,
dale mucho vino,	give him much more wine,
mas suave, mas suave,	cooler, cooler,
mas lindo que la chingada,	more fuckin' beautiful what the fuck,
hombre, undele pinchi vato, hombre,	man, come on damn dude, man
Tu carnal, tu carnal ese tu,	Your buddy, your buddy, eh, you,
tu sabes, toda movida, toda movida,	You know, all groove, all groove,
esa, tu sabes como es, pinchi vino,	eh, you know how it is, fuckin' wine,
puta, undele pinchi vato, undele	faggot, c'mon damn dude, c'mon
hombre (?)	man
Por que no hombre,	Why not man,
te digo que si hombre	I tell you yes, man,
te digo, chingawese(?),	I tell you, we get tight,
esta meco, ponemos mas mecos	this meco (?), we put more mecos (?)
que la chingada, .. (?) ai ai vato.	what the fuck, ai ai fuckin' dude

carnal = buddy, blood brother, not 'lustfulness'
pinche = damn or fucking, an expletive preceeding any noun literally pinche means cook's helper.
vato = dude
puto = fairy, faggot
cabron = lit. male goat = mother fucker
mas suave, mas lindo que la chingada = cooler, more fucking beutiful suave means soft, but is slang for cool.
la movida = the groove

From: james@astro.as.utexas.edu (James McCartney)
He's basically begging some guy to get his friend to buy some wine. He's saying "Your friend, your friend, you know the groove, you know how it is, fucking faggot, c'mon."

And here is another transcription and translation with explanation for you friends right from the heart of the Spain itself!

* * *

From: "Rom�n Garc�a Albertos" <rgarciaal@nexo.es>
This is what I heard when I listened carefully the record. I compared it with the Goetgeluk�s girlfriend & McCartney version. The problem is that it�s not Spanish Spanish, it�s Pachuco, with a lot of Mexican slang expressions, and I don�t know the real meaning of a lot of words. I suppose with them that "vato" is like "dude". "Pinche" I think that comes from "compinche", "friend, pal", but used here as they say. "Puto" is the male for "puta", "harlot, whore", and in the dictionary it means (literally) "Passive sodomite". Spanish is a wonderful language. "Nalga" is "buttock", but I don�t know the meaning in this context, so I translate it literally. "Cabr�n" is correct 100%, we say it in Spain all the while. "Chingar" is "to fuck". "Empech�guele" comes from "pechuga", "chicken breast", in Spain we say "Apechugar" as "push with the chest", and "Take charge of something". "Meco" is the name of a Mexican Indian tribe, I don�t know the meaning here. To make some corrections and the translation into English (maybe somebody must correct my English, I think) I�ve heard the song again and louder, and, surprise, I�ve heard at the end a female voice saying in English something like: "They� they get you after a while" �Am I the first person in the world to hear that voice? �Am I hearing voices?

THIS IS WHAT I HEARD:

Por qu� no consigues tu... tu carnal que nos compre some wine ese, �ndale, pinchi vato, puto, hombre, no te hagas nalga, hombre� no seas tan denso, hombre, �ndale, dile, por qu� no merecer, �ndale, pinchi vino, m�s sua... m�s suave es, m�s... m�s lindo que la chingada, hombre, �ndale, pinchi vato, hombre, quiere tu carnal, hombre, tu carnal ese, t�, t� sabes, t� sabes esto de la movida, t� sabes la movida, ese, t� sabes c�mo es, pinchi vino, puta, �ndale, pinchi vato, cabr�n, �ndale, empech�guele, hombre, por qu� no, hombre? Te digo que s�, hombre, te digo, chingao ese, est� m�s... est� m�s meco, hombre, nos ponemos m�s mecos que la chingada, ay! Ay, vato pinchi, ay! FEMALE VOICE: They� they get you after a while

THIS IS WHAT I THINK THAT IT MEANS IN SOME KIND OF ENGLISH:

Why don�t you make your� your buddy to buy us some of that wine, come on, damn dude, faggot, man, don�t act like a buttock, man� don�t be so thick, man, come on, tell him, why don�t deserve it, come on, damn wine, soft� softer, more� more beautiful than the fucking bitch, man, come on, damn dude, man, your buddy wants, that buddy of yours, you, you know, you know how is the thing, you know the thing, that, you know how it is, damn wine, bitch, come on, damn dude, motherfucker, come on, man, why don�t you dare, man? I tell you so, man, I tell you, that fuckin� dude, he�s more� he�s more meco, man, we become more mecos than the fucking bitch, ay! Ay, fuckin� dude, ay!

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