[Ed. Note: This thrilling clip of Mitzi Gaynor and four gorgeous men is from the dress rehearsal of the February 16, 1964 episode of the Ed Sullivan show. Famed British rockers, the Beatles, also appeared on Sullivan’s show that night, their second of three consecutive weekly appearances.]
It’s quite a rousing jangling version of what began as a spiritual… but the song has a tradition of being re-set into Jazz, starting with Louis Armstrong, so I don’t think it’s disrespectful at all, it’s just an indicator of showbiz incorporating material from a Black vernacular. One thing that’s also very interesting to me, is the chorus of “Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego”; this refers to the 3 figures in the Book of Daniel who refuse to bow down to the King… this has a small bit of consistent currency in pop music as well. I had heard Johnny Cash sing a song referencing the ‘fourth man‘ in the ring of fire in the story, who leads the 3 guys to safety — another reason Christians love the story, as it prefigures a Messiah. But famously it’s sampled from Sly and the Family Stone’s “Loose Booty,” by the Beastie Boys, for their awesome track “Shadrach.”
Some Jewish fans loved that the Beastie Boys parallelled themselves, in great rhyme, with the Biblical figures, a kind of shoutout for in-the-know that they were Jewish (or half-, in Yauch’s case); but others don’t know the story as much. The famous version of their names is a Babylonian / Aramaic alteration of the Hebrew, which might be why some modern Jews don’t recognize the spelling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadrach,_Meshach,_and_Abednego
Not a Beastie Boys video, but kind of funny to set it to this biblical flick:
