Jelly roll (slang)
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Jelly roll is a sexual slang term used to indicate variously a lover, intercourse, or the sexual parts. According to the book The Story of English, "On the street, jelly roll had many associated meanings, from the respectable 'lover, or spouse', to the Harlem slang of the 1930s, 'a term for the vagina'." [1] In blues usage, however, the cylindrical pastry was at least as easily used as a metaphor for the phallus. It is rare for a euphemism for sexual parts to be applied equally to the male and female.
The book Blues Fell This Morning: Meaning in the Blues cites a recording by Peg Leg Howell and His Gang as an example of sexual metaphor in the blues:
- Jelly-roll, jelly-roll, ain't so hard to find.
- Ain't a baker shop in town bake 'em brown like mine
- I got a sweet jelly, a lovin' sweet jelly roll,
- If you taste my jelly, it'll satisfy your worried soul [2]
For possibly the most mischevious, leering chuckles every recorded, try the Josh White version (1958, LP album "Josh At Midnight"). These are transcribed from my LP, bought back in 1959; I'not been able to find an online citation for them. The cut starts with Josh gargling. This picks up at about the fourth or fifth verse . . .
- I'm gonna take you baby (chuckle), stretch you 'cross my big brass bed.
- {Hey lordy mama! Great God Almighty!)
- I'm gonna take you baby, stretch you 'cross my big brass bed.
- I'm'a rub your head, baby, 'til your toes, your toes turn cherry red!
- I've got nineteen women, livin' in Al's neighborhood
- (His wife don' know it! Great God Almighty!)
- I've got nineteen women, livin' in Al's neighborhood
- Eighteen of them are fools, the other gal ain't no God damned good!
- But she makes me holler . . ohh baby ,ooh baby, oo
- But she makes me holler . . owe! baby, ooh baby, oo
- I love ya baby, what more can a poor man do?
- You've got bad blood baby, I believe you need a shot!
- (long lascivious chuckle)
- You've got bad blood baby, I believe you need a shot!
- On your back now baby: Let the doctor see what else you've got!:
The expression appears in numerous blues and jazz songs, such as "I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None of This Jelly Roll" by Clarence Williams (also known as "Jelly Roll Blues", which was recorded by Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, and many other singers in the 1920s; Billy Eckstine's "Jelly, Jelly" from the 1940s; and "Jelly Roll" by Nina Simone in the 1970s ("I could go for a ride on your sweet jelly roll/ But I wouldn't give nothing for my juicy, juicy soul"). The phrase is best remembered from the nickname of early jazz bandleader Jelly Roll Morton.
- I ain't gonna give nobody none of my jelly roll
- I wouldn't give you a piece of my cake to save your soul
- My jelly roll is sweet and it can't be beat
- I know you want it, you can't have it, ain't gonna give you none
Billy Eckstein's more modern "Jelly Jelly" takes a tragic view:
- Jelly jelly jelly
- Jelly stays on my mind
- Jelly roll killed my pappy,
- And run my mama stone blind.
Van Morrison included the term in numerous songs, such as "And It Stoned Me" and "He Ain't Give You None". He used it with great success to combine the erotic with the religious such as "rock your jelly roll soul" in live performances of "Into the Mystic." The term is also used repeatedly in the Grateful Dead song "Dupree's Diamond Blues". Sonic Youth's "Dirty Boots" describes "all the girls there playin' on a jelly roll," and declares that it's "time to rock the road/And tell the story of the jelly rollin'." [3]
Charles Mingus' instrumental "Jelly Roll" is included in his classic album Mingus-Ah-Um. The song is half bebop and half deliberately down-and-dirty Dixieland.
The term jelly bean has been used for a pimp.
