"The Snake" | ||||
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Single by Al Wilson | ||||
B-side | "Willoughby Brook" | |||
Released | August 1968 | |||
Genre |
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Length | 3:27 | |||
Label | Soul City Records | |||
Songwriter(s) | Oscar Brown | |||
Producer(s) | Johnny Rivers, Marc Gordon | |||
Al Wilson singles chronology | ||||
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"The Snake" is a song written and first recorded by civil-rights activist Oscar Brown in 1963; it became a hit single for American singer Al Wilson in 1968. [2] [3] The song tells a story similar to Aesop's fable The Farmer and the Viper and the African American folktale "Mr. Snake and the Farmer". [4]
The song gained renewed attention during the campaign for the 2016 United States presidential election.
In the U.S., the hit version of "The Snake" was released in 1968, on Johnny Rivers' Soul City Records. (Rivers had released his own version of the song on his 1966 album ...And I Know You Wanna Dance .) Wilson's single made the Top 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968 and, due to exposure on the UK Northern Soul scene, made the UK Singles Chart in August 1975 when reissued, reaching No. 41 in September. [5] The success of "The Snake" on the northern soul nightclub circuit has led to it being ranked 4 of 500 top northern soul singles and for it to appear on over 30 pop and northern soul compilation albums. [6] [7] [8] The song was re-released in 1989 as a B-side to a re-release of "Just Don't Want to Be Lonely" by The Main Ingredient. [2] Wilson's recording of "The Snake" was also featured in a Lambrini television advertisement in the UK. [9]
Chart (1968) | Peak position |
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Canada RPM Top Singles [10] | 38 |
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 [11] | 27 |
U.S. Billboard R&B | 32 |
U.S. Cash Box Top 100 [12] | 32 |
Chart (1975) | Peak position |
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UK [5] | 41 |
The song was featured in season 4, episode 25 of the television show Northern Exposure , "Old Tree". It was sung by Cynthia Geary in her role as the character Shelly Tambo. The episode originally aired on May 24, 1993. [13]
The song gained renewed attention during the campaign for the 2016 United States presidential election. Republican candidate Donald Trump read its lyrics at several campaign rallies to illustrate his position on illegal immigration, claiming that the decision to allow people claiming refugee status to enter the United States would "come back to bite us", as happened to the woman who took in the snake in the song. [14] Oscar Brown's work has been described as "a celebration of black culture and a repudiation of racism". [15] Two of Brown's seven children asked Trump to stop using their late father's song, telling the media: "He's perversely using 'The Snake' to demonize immigrants" and that Brown "never had anything against immigrants". [16] Despite a cease and desist letter, Trump has continued reciting the lyrics at rallies including in June 2021, [17] and in September [18] and December 2023. [19] At a rally in Ohio March 16, 2024, Trump again read "The Snake," calling it "a very accurate metaphor, and it's about our border, it's about the people we have coming in, and don't be surprised when bad things happen, because bad things will happen." [20]
In 2024, The Lincoln Project, a Republican Trump opposition group, co-opted Trump's reading of the poem in an attack ad during the 2024 Republican National Convention, positing Vance as the woman and Trump as the snake. [21]
"God Bless the U.S.A." is an American patriotic song written and recorded by American country singer Lee Greenwood, and is considered to be his signature song. Released by MCA Nashville on May 21, 1984, it appeared on Greenwood's third album, You've Got a Good Love Comin'. It debuted at number seven on the Billboard Hot Country Singles.
Melvin Lee Greenwood is an American country music singer-songwriter and saxophonist. Active since 1962, he has released more than 20 major-label albums and has charted more than 35 singles on the Billboard country music charts.
Oscar Brown Jr. was an American singer, songwriter, playwright, poet, civil rights activist, and actor. Aside from his career, Brown ran unsuccessfully for office in both the Illinois state legislature and the U.S. Congress. Brown wrote many songs, 12 albums, and more than a dozen musical plays.
Edmond Montague Grant is a Guyanese-British singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known for his genre-blending sound and socially-conscious lyrics; his music has blended elements of pop, British rock, soul, funk, reggae, electronic music, African polyrhythms, and Latin music genres such as samba, among many others. In addition to this, he also helped to pioneer the genre of "Ringbang". He was a founding member of the Equals, one of the United Kingdom's first racially mixed pop groups who are best remembered for their million-selling UK chart-topper, the Grant-penned "Baby, Come Back".
"You Can't Always Get What You Want" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones from their 1969 album Let It Bleed. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, it was named as the 100th greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine in its 2004 list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" before dropping a place the following year.
Allen LaMar Wilson was an American soul singer known for the million-selling number one hit "Show and Tell". He is also remembered for his Northern soul anthem, "The Snake".
Samuel David Moore is an American singer who was best known as a member of the soul and R&B duo Sam & Dave from 1961 to 1981. He is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.
The Farmer and the Viper is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 176 in the Perry Index. It has the moral that kindness to evil will be met by betrayal and is the source of the idiom "to nourish a viper in one's bosom". The fable is not to be confused with The Snake and the Farmer, which looks back to a situation when friendship was possible between the two.
"Icky Thump" is a song recorded by the American alternative rock band the White Stripes. Written by Jack White, it was the first single released from their sixth and final album of the same name. The song is a heavy garage-rock piece whose lyrics challenge anti-immigration pundits for their hypocrisy. It was recorded and mixed at Nashville's Blackbird studio.
"Only in America" is a song recorded by American country music duo Brooks & Dunn. It was released in June 2001 as the second single from the album Steers & Stripes. Kix Brooks, one-half of the duo, co-wrote the song with Don Cook and Ronnie Rogers. "Only in America" was also the second of three consecutive Number One hits from that album, reaching its peak on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts for the week of October 27, 2001.
"Twenty-Five Miles" is a song written by Johnny Bristol, Harvey Fuqua, and Edwin Starr for Starr's second album, 25 Miles (1969). The song was considered sufficiently similar to "32 Miles out of Waycross" by Hoagy Lands, written by Bert Berns and Jerry Wexler, that Berns and Wexler were eventually given co-writing credits. Essentially the same theme also appeared in late 1959 in the approaching miles section of the lyrics of Jimmie Rodgers' "Tucumcari".
"FDT" is a protest song by YG featuring Nipsey Hussle, and is the second single from YG's second studio album Still Brazy. The song is a criticism of the policies of the Republican candidate in the 2016 US presidential election, Donald Trump, who would eventually win the 2016 presidential election.
Maggie Brown is an American singer, spoken word artist, and music producer. A native of Chicago, Illinois, United States, Brown sings in many genres: jazz, blues, R&B, soul, and spoken word. Her singing style has been described by James Walker as "transcend[ing] limitations and genres, while still maintaining her unique unmistakable voice." She is a protege of Oscar Brown Jr. and Abbey Lincoln. She uses music to educate, what she calls "edutainment", a word that she learned from her father. She gives talks and demonstrations on music and African American musical history. She performs with her sister, Africa Brown. They perform their work and their father's work.
Lara Lea Trump is an American former television producer who has co-chaired the Republican National Committee since March 2024. She is married to Eric Trump, the third child of former U.S. President Donald Trump. She was the producer and host of Trump Productions' Real News Update and a producer of Inside Edition.
"Do What You Gotta Do" is a song that was written by Jimmy Webb. It was first recorded by Johnny Rivers and released on his 1967 album Rewind. In 1968, it was an R&B hit for Al Wilson. It was also a hit for Nina Simone that year and a local hit for New Zealand band Larry's Rebels.
A major aspect of Donald Trump's presidential election campaigns, in both his 2016 campaign, and his 2020 campaign, are his prominent and frequent political rallies. Below are musicians who have voiced opposition to their music being used by Trump at his rallies, or for other political purposes, and the actions they took in response to their music's use.
The 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio was held on November 8, 2022, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Ohio. Republican writer and venture capitalist J. D. Vance defeated Democratic U.S. Representative Tim Ryan to succeed retiring incumbent Republican Rob Portman.
Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, who served from 2017 to 2021, announced his campaign for a nonconsecutive second presidential term in the 2024 U.S. presidential election on November 15, 2022. He was officially nominated on July 15, 2024 at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, and accepting his nomination to the presidency of the United States for the GOP during the final day of the convention on July 18, 2024, where was announced J. D. Vance, the junior U.S. Senator from Ohio, as the nominee for vice president and campaign partner. If elected into office, Trump will become the oldest president in American history and the second to serve a second non consecutive term after Grover Cleveland.
... and it became a cult favorite on the Northern Soul scene, the pre-rave phenomenon where British kids would ... spend all night dancing to obscure R&B records.