Where does this phrase come from?

January 19, 2009 11:33 AM

What is the first usage in a song of "wave your hands in the air, like you [just] don't care"?

It seems to be a pretty common phrase in the lyrics of some music genres these days. The first time I encountered it was in Cameo's "Word Up," but I am curious to know who was the unsung creator of this enduring phrase.

posted by ricochet biscuit to media & arts (10 comments total)

then ya throw your hands high in the air
ya rockin to the rhythm, shake your derriere
ya rockin to the beat without a care

The Sugarhill Gang - "Rapper's Delight" (1979)
posted by Joe Beese at 11:37 AM on January 19

The Sugarhill Gang flat out ripped off other folks for Rappers Delight and such - so they definitely weren't the originators, but that may have been one of the earliest popular songs to feature it.
posted by cashman at 12:04 PM on January 19 [1 favorite]

The first I heard this, was on Kideo's Happy Hands Game, with the lyrics:

Throw your hands in the air
Wave them like you don't care
Make them point everywhere
Happy hands game. Happy hands game."

Probably early eighties.
posted by Chuckles McLaughy du Haha, the depressed clown at 12:15 PM on January 19

1986 actually, from their first album.
posted by Chuckles McLaughy du Haha, the depressed clown at 12:16 PM on January 19

I have some old pop soul song from the early-to-mid 1960s (possibly Shirley Ellis) with the lyric "shake your hands in the air / if you really don't care." But come on . . . this line isn't so distinct as to have a real origin, in all probability.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 12:21 PM on January 19

Like cashman says--if the Sugarhill Gang said it, somebody said it earlier. Some Jamaican, or some disco dj (or Grandmaster Caz). Anyway, it seems like pretty standard move-the-crowd patter (who was the first person to say 'All the ladies in the house' or 'I can't hear you'?) There's a very good chance, I think, that the name of the real originator is lost to history.
posted by box at 12:22 PM on January 19

Well, to clarify, I am not talking about the first person ever to say it, but the first time it ever appeared in a song's lyrics.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:29 PM on January 19

if the Sugarhill Gang said it, somebody said it earlier

I interpreted the question to mean "What made the couplet into a hip-hop trope?" On the basis of its influence, that would have to be "Rapper's Delight" - even if the Gang stole it from an obscure 45 someone was selling out of their trunk.
posted by Joe Beese at 12:40 PM on January 19

Cameo - Word Up, 1986
posted by JuiceBoxHero at 7:56 PM on January 19

Potentially Cowboy of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

Flash’s days as a deejay date back to 1974, when he and other deejays who were too young to get into discos began playing at house parties and block parties in their South Bronx neighborhoods. Flash worked briefly with Kurtis Blow, but Cowboy became the first MC to officially join Grandmaster Flash in what would become the Furious Five. Cowboy’s rousing exhortations—including now-familiar calls to party, like “Throw your hands in the air and wave ‘em like you just don’t care!”—became essential ingredients of the hip-hop experience.

Namechecked in this 1984 Miami Herald article.
posted by dhartung at 10:38 PM on January 19 [1 favorite]