The Whiteness of the Wail

Chapter Seven: The Whiteness of the Wail. The white wail was a legacy, dating back to the pot-banging, tub-thumping parades that whites becoming a working class used as they “made the night hideous” registering disapproval. Voices are socially regulated, often in racially defined ways, afforded different limits. Elvis Presley shaking off his night as Steve Allen's butler became punk: Patti Smith voicing the N-word like the door code to Iggy Pop and his Michigan friends' rock and roll speakeasy; Kurt Cobain's doomy final grunge howl MTV Unplugged. The rock and roll single, from “Hound Dog” to “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” made the white wail louder than ever before—or since. Electrified instruments and magnetic tape produced a power surge. We should see the world produced by the white wail as an answer in search of the right question, an answer designed to stop questions altogether.