The etymology department sent us a memo and requested a collaboration with the musicology department. Request approved!

It’s generally agreed that the word dude originates with the 18th century, American Revolutionary War insult song “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” When the insulters used dude it meant a dandy, but rather than just call someone a dandy — or a doodle — they settled on dude, which I suppose sounded more derogatory. In the 19th century, the appellation moved out West with all those Gold Rushers and Manifest Destiny-ers and came to refer to an urbanite, a city slicker, any well-dressed, out of place fop amongst the rough and ready, denim and rawhide cowboys. Moving into the 20th century, during the 1930’s and 40’s, black culture embraced the term, but by now dude had evolved into a compliment for those wearing the zootiest of zoot suits, and by the time the 50’s and 60’s rolled around the word had migrated into surfer culture, which is where dude started to attain its worldwide recognition and popularity.

Weirdly, despite the use of the word for a couple of hundred years, dude had yet to appear in a song.

Now let’s talk about Mountain.

Leslie West was playing in a New York R&B group not unlike The Rascals when Cream producer Felix Pappalardi approached him and basically said, “Hey, ditch these guys, I’ll play bass, and we’ll record you as a solo artist.” Already contemplating a move into harder rock territory, West agreed to the plan and an album titled Mountain was recorded and released in 1969. He and Pappalardi worked together so well that they decided to form a band named after that first album and then go on the road. After only two shows together, their third concert took place at the Woodstock Music & Arts Festival in front of a couple hundred thousand people. And then it was time to go back into the studio.

When West played a guitar riff but had nothing to pair it with, new drummer “Corky” Laing broke out some lyrics and a drum part that he’d been working on prior to joining the band. Everyone else pitched in and “Mississippi Queen” was born.

Now let’s jump to the present day: while listening to “Mississippi Queen” and trying to decide what exactly to write about for this post (since there isn’t much of a story), I wondered if this was the first time dude had ever appeared in a song. Wracking my memory files didn’t lead me to think of any prior examples, and I could have just taken a chance, but this seemed like one of those situations where it might prove beneficial to employ a little research in order to verify what was really only an educated guess. Good thing I checked.

My assumption — if I was mistaken about “Mississippi Queen” — was that dude would show up in an old Cab Calloway or Jelly Roll Morton song, or maybe something by an obscure R&B group from the 60’s. Instead, sources revealed that the word dude first appears (as far as limited research goes) in a song I’m actually quite familiar with called “Heroes And Villains,” released in 1967 by The Beach Boys. I always heard the lyric as the group vocalizing “doodle-la-do,” but have since learned they actually sing: “what a dude’ll do…in a town full of heroes and villains.”

What a dude’ll do. Right. Okay.

So “Mississippi Queen” turns out to be the second song (feel free to correct me, Internet) to feature the word dude in the lyrics, and when released as a single in early 1970, immediately climbed up to #21 on the US Top 100, becoming a staple on FM radio and a hard rock classic.

So get your kicks with the rest of them dudes … and with Mountain.