Love Me Some Internet

I've been suffering silently with my CD/DVD of "Real Live Roadrunning" because of my frustration over the DVD-only offerings, particularly "Song for Sonny Liston," which I couldn't put on my 'Pod. Well, I just downloaded a shareware thingy called Audio Hijack and was able to figure out how to extract just the audio portion from the DVD for that track! So now I can listen to it on my ipod (or iTunes). Yee-ha.

For the record, I was kind of glad to hear the lyrics, "He had a left like Henry's hammer,* a right like Betty Bamalam," because I'd always wondered who the heck was Betty Bamalam in that horrible '70s song, "Whoa, Black Betty Bamalam...." Apparently she's a character from a Walter Mosely book. Good. In fact, she is a character from an old folk song popularized by Lead Belly. I still don't get the boxing connection, though. (Thanks, Melanie!)

*Which reminds me, I'm way overdue for a review of Springsteen's "We Shall Overcome," which I bought last spring. Yeesh. This week, I promise.

Comments

[melanie]

That reference to Walter Mosely's book is wrong, as that book came out in the 1990s. Check out wikipedia for a better explanation.

[Chris Kramer]

There is a roller derby skater in Australia that goes by the name Betty BamALam. She might have a mean right.

[Howard Dahlberg]

I have heard that "betty bamalam" was the name given to the whip used on chain gangs in days gone by: a painful and persuasive tool for exacting punishment and submission.

[alan threadgould]

Henry's Hammer probaly refers to Henry Cooper whose left hook that almost beat Muhammad Ali... saved by the bell

[drew]

Henry's hammer is a reference to John Henry. The song is about a large black champion boxer, Sonny Liston. John Henry, the folk legendary steel driving mining man, whose right arm was said to be able to lift and drive a 9 lb sledge hammer into a coal seam single handedly. One strong arm. Betty Bamalam reference IS about the roller derby gal.