Given all the uproar over the Bad Bunny halftime show, we may need a refresher course. I know I was chair dancing to the great music and it didn’t matter a bit that even California born and raised, my Spanish is one word at a time slowly limited.
The musical South Pacific, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, was written and premiered on Broadway in 1949. The book was written by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan, based on James A. Michener’s 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific. It opened on April 7, 1949, at the Majestic Theatre.
You would think people would have gotten the message at some point in the last 75 years.
You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught
Rodgers & Hammerstein
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people’s whose eyes are oddly made
And people’s whose skin is a different shade
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You have to be taught to hate and fear
You have to be taught from year to year
It has to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You’ve got to be carefully taught
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
