We invented whatnow? I've been here for quite a while, and I've never heard any. Gospel doesn't mix well with booze.

Actually, an American says that Scotland invented Gospel, so a better headline would be:
America says Scotland invented Gospel music. In other news, Scotland says America invented French Fries.

ok, so that wasn't better

In other news, it was proven today that P. Diddy did in fact invent the remix.

In other news, Mormons invented Jazz. My proof is the name of their basketball team.

Great headline.

Is that a racist comment?

I'd concur with the 'wegie at the top.

I don't think anyone goes to church here at all anymore. Even the pope said that Scotland was no longer a christian country.

"We may observe that in Scotland, as in many lands evangelised centuries ago and steeped in Christianity, there no longer exists the reality of a Christian society." - PJP II

The pope meant Scotland has been damned to hell for inventing the haggis.

I can believe it. They sure as hell had alot to try to sing about with the Brits for a while...

Well the Rolling Stones invented the blues, so this makes absolute sense to me.

Best headline ever!

Oh yeah and robbie williams invented Swing and Big Band.

That would be considered a racially insensitive headline....though most farkers (myself included) wouldn't give a rat's ass.

Gospel music's roots were in the songs of slaves, those both born in Africa and "imported" as well as those who reproduced in the US.

Insenstive: yes.
Incorrect: not really.

Im fairly sure the Chinese invented bagpipes

I would tend to think that the Jews invented gospel music, if you want to get technical. After all, many of the psalms were about the coming messiah!

Well, the bagpipes were not invented in Africa, but first appeared in Turkey. From there, historians have so far traced the spread of bagpipes across Europe all the way to Scotland. In the middle ages, bagpipes were in use in almost all European kingdoms, but only in Scotland where they were refined to the versatile instrument known today.

LordOfTheFlies: [Amazing Grace is] about the guy seeing that it was wrong to trade in people.

I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure that he was not a religious man, and went on an ocean-going ship. There was a horrible storm, he thought he was going to die, and made a deal with god that if he lived, he would become religious. He lived, and he became religious. Then he wrote the song.

Here it is.

http://www.snopes.com/religion/amazing.htm

The Professor's conclusions seem a little premature. Finding thematic links doesn't automatically mean direct derivation or indicate the direction of said derivation. Cultural anthropologists believe that...huh? what?....oh! Sorry, I forgot where I was for a moment...uh, uh...Fark him!

Anyone that read the article saw that the professor in question is black, and play with Ellington and Gillespie.

Also, anyone that read the basis for his assertion, and has been to Scotish Presbyterian church, can agree that the format of song, and not the style, is what is being discussed.

Oh, and the name French Fry (as I understand it) was an English invention.

What they invented was probably harmony.
They needed vocal music for both priests and castrated little boys.

we must destroy scotland.

Well, saying Africans invented bagpipes wouldn't be ENTIRELY too far off, because it certainly wasn't the Scots who did. Bagpipes were traced in their origins in some cases to north Africa, and in some cases to the Middle East. Scots didn't make their own pipes until around the 15th or 16th century... which they ripped off from the Breton (French) Petit Binou and Veuzes.

How about this: American says Scotland invented Gospel music. Scotland says America invented kilts.

Actually, Bagpipes may have originated in Northern Africa - as a reedpipe with a sheep's bladder between the mouthpiece and chanter, so that the instrument keeps playing while the musician takes a quick breath. So there may be something to the smug headline.

Similarly, the suggestion that Gospel singing may have come from Scotland shouldn't be a surprise. Most American musical roots lie in Scotland and Ireland, and that isn't at all controversial.

In fact, I suspect that precious little of black culture is something that survived the passage from Africa. Slaves, after all, weren't "African", they were Mende and Yoruba and dozens of other ethnicities w/ different cultures and languages. The only thing slaves had in common was the culture of their white masters.

Dang someone beat me to "Africa really DID invent bagpipes"!

As for Amazing Grace, it's my understanding that it was a pipe air long before Newton set his words to it.

That's not uncommon either. It was quite common to set new lyrics to existing tunes in the 18th century. Robbie Burns virtually made an industry of it.

Tis true that the Celts invented Rock n Roll.

you're welcome to try madcapcat. we'll be waiting for you hehehehehehe

If I'm not mistaken (50/50 odds, as in everything else in my life) during the formation of the church, music in services was a contentious issue.

I invented bagpipes and then had to invent a time machine (again, yawn..) to keep temporal inertia to a minimum. In about ten years, some will thank me, some will condemn me, but all will know me.

I believe this just as much as I believe Al Gore invented the internet.

SherKhan
You're not mistaken; the early non-conformist Protestant churches in the Scottish lowlands and (to a lesser extent) England were virulently anti-music and anti-dance, whether in services or not. Either could end you up in the stocks.

"we must destroy scotland."

Let's do some summing:

In the positive:

Gospel, Harmonia, golf, caber tossing, tartan, claymores, the roots of blue grass, scotch whisky, curling, a surfeit of redheads, Rory Gallagher, these guys:

http://www.dfwtartanday.org/contributions.htm

etc.

In the negative: Haggis.

Destroy Scotland.

Bagpipes are a Persian instrument which slowly made their way up into Scotland somehow over time and they fell in love like a attractive and successful African-American and a fat ass. So blame Fahim Zoroaster, not Angus McHaggis.

and there are supposed to be <anal> and </anal> tags there, but i was a moron and left HTML on

how about

tap dancing,iron rimmed chariots,soap,chainmail,limericks, and Pat O'Brien

To whom it may concern and Haggis haters inluded:

IMO Haggis is no worse than a hot dog.

FYI, the eskimo's version of Haggis consists of placing small animals and misc chunks of meat in a baby seal. Bury it in the snow for a couple weeks. Dig up seal, recut stomach to reveal a liquified meat slushi.

Why would anyone want to take credit for on of the most annoying forms of music ever devised? Don't try to blame the scots for this one...

By the way - Haggis? Vile.

Sorry, but it's true.

Well, I guess this explains the Average White Band.

In other news, Africa is a continent, not a country.

Gonzo
More to the point, Haggis is no worse than sausage.

Haggis: ground meat & liver, mixed with spices, stuffed into and cooked in a stomach.

Sausage: ground meat, mixed with spices, stuffed into and cooked in a length of intestine.

So considering that most people revile haggis do so having never eaten it, and yet have eaten sausage without complaint?

Ignorance? Squeamishness? Blind adherence to the herd?

>GonzoThinker
FYI, the eskimo's version of Haggis consists of placing small animals and misc chunks of meat in a baby seal. Bury it in the snow for a couple weeks. Dig up seal, recut stomach to reveal a liquified meat slushi.

Have you had baby seal? You can't beat it.

(yeah, I know I'm going to hell for that one)

"Our gospels come in three sizes... weee, no-so whee and FRIGGIN' HUGE!!"

/if it's not Scottish gospel, it's crap

Robobagpiper:

I don't have to eat ass to know that I won't like it.

Same goes for haggis.

Ignorance? Squeamishness? Blind adherence to the herd?

No, common goddamn sense.

Bah, Scots ain't got nothin' on Germans. It's all about Blutwurst. Haggis, HAH! That's no test of manhood... and Germans had bagpipes CENTURIES before the sheep-molesters did.

/inciting riot