Lyr Req: Short-Haired Woman (Lightnin' Hopkins)

Subject: RE: Lightnin' Hopkins song - meaning
From: DougR
Date: 08 Sep 99 - 08:23 PM

I can tell you for sure there was a hairpiece called a rat during the time period jtm mentions. Don't know if that's what Lightin' has in mind though. It would make some sense though.

DougR

Subject: RE: Lightnin' Hopkins song - meaning
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 08 Sep 99 - 05:58 PM

The rat hairpiece is plausible I think. African-American women tend to style hair short. There might be an association with long-haired women as being "loose". Long hair is also a caucasion characteristic. The "rat" hairpiece might symbolize some kind of deception. This is all speculative, mind you.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Lightnin' Hopkins song - meaning
From: jtm
Date: 08 Sep 99 - 12:27 PM

Wasn't a rat an expression for a hair piece back in the 40-50s, and before? I remember people talking a rat in their hair to make it look longer or fuller

Subject: RE: Lightnin' Hopkins song - meaning
From: Roger the zimmer
Date: 08 Sep 99 - 09:03 AM

Maybe I'm just perverted but I'm getting an image, it's Richard Gere, it's a hamster,no, it's a possum, no,it's a rat, as a substitute for a girl who turned out to be a friend of k.d.lang? I dunno, doctor, what do you think, you're showing me all the dirty pictures?
I prefer the "Straight an' Nat'ral Blue"(Fred McDowall)

Subject: Lightnin' Hopkins song - meaning
From: Paul S
Date: 08 Sep 99 - 08:45 AM

Lightnin' Hopkins sings a song called Short-Haired Woman. The first verse goes:

I don't want no woman
Doesn't have hair no longer than mine
I don't want no woman
Doesn't have hair no longer than mine
She ain't good for nothing but trouble
That keep you buyin' rats all the time

What does buying rats have to do with all of these troublesome short-haired women? Is this some old superstition I've never heard of?