Talk:Easy rider (slang)

World War II

The term most certainly did not originate during World War II. It may have come into the vocabulary of a new group of people at that time, but at least for a number of African Americans of the U.S. South, the expression was already old. If it can only be doccumented back to the 1920s, that may be because we don't have earlier recordings of African American blues. It at least goes back to Bunk Johnson's generation (whenever that was). -- Infrogmation 17:01, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In philology, as well as in sociology, to arrive at a clear definiton one has to suspend ethnocentric-type thinking, no particular group of people can claim ownership of a word, term, or expression because they first put it to music, or gave it its most popular meaning - since by definition slang has a static meaning to begin with. (If that were the case the majority of rap artists today would be suing each other).

To try & determine the origin of a slang expression, it is easy but logically incorrect to assume the period when it enters into mainstream culture or the venue by which it is introduced that the people who introduced it must be the originator of the expression & the time it is introduced as its only inception; when actually it existed long before but with a slightly different meaning.

Using this same but faulty logic you can reverse the argument & said that it did originate during WWII because the slang term at that time acquired a meaning that has remined more or less the same ever since, or that since the expression acquired its most users or entered into the majority of mainstream culture at that time that they "own" the expression more than the people who used it during the emerging blues scence of the 1920s, thus, slang expressions are "time-shared" having a unique meaning to a particular group of people for a limited amount of time - in short, same expression, different meaning, no one "owner". Academically then, "easy rider" originated when the words "easy" & "rider" were first formed to convey a meaning - probably the day after the saddle or first bicycle or automobile was invented. Hscully3 280605

Veers off

Beginning with the railroad "references" in the third paragraph this article veers off topic badly. The article needs a serious re-writing. Teneriff 03:43, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Led Zeppelin Lyrics

Isn't it a violation of copyright to post song lyrics on Wikipedia?

If the lyrics are under copyright it is; if not it is not. -- Infrogmation 00:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Do the Led Zeppelin lyrics differ from other versions? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.75.234.239 (talk) 03:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

An earlier reference in rock and roll was made by Iron Butterfly [[1]] Zrylam 07:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)