"The Snake" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Single by Al Wilson | ||||
B-side | "Getting Ready for Tomorrow" (1968 release) "Willoughby Brook" (1975 UK release) | |||
Released | August 1968 (U.S.) August 8, 1975 (U.K.) | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 3:27 | |||
Label | Soul City (1968 release) Bell (1975 UK release) | |||
Songwriter(s) | Oscar Brown | |||
Producer(s) | ||||
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 |
---|---|
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 |
---|---|
UK [5] | 41 |
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
United Kingdom (BPI) [13] | Silver | 200,000‡ |
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. |
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. [14]
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. [15] Oscar Brown's work has been described as "a celebration of black culture and a repudiation of racism". [16] 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". [17] Despite a cease and desist letter, Trump has continued reciting the lyrics at rallies including in June 2021, [18] and in September [19] and December 2023. [20] 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." [21]
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. [22]
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Oscar Brown Jr. was an American singer, songwriter, playwright, poet, civil rights activist, and actor. Brown discovered The Jackson 5. 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.
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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.
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Donald Trump, the president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, has a history of speech and actions that have been viewed by scholars and the public as racist or sympathetic to White supremacy. Journalists, friends, family, and former employees have accused him of fueling racism in the United States. Trump has repeatedly denied accusations of racism.
Maggie Brown is an American singer, spoken word artist, and music producer. 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 the daughter of Oscar Brown Jr., and was mentored by him 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.
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... 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.