The meaning of "boogie" ?

[vodkatonique]

I always had the notion that boogie simply meant dance when my best friend recently hinted that it had sexual connotations. He says this because in a French show some years ago he heard Madonna say "Do you like to boogie woogie ?" to the audience, then she immediately translated it by "Vous aimez baiser baiser ?" (which basically means do you like fucky fucky or something along the line... :roll: I know, it's Madonna...). So does anybody know where and when the term "boogie" was coined and if it had a sexual meaning at the time ?

[Forrrce]

The term could indeed have a number of meanings - the term 'jazz' has several disputed origins, one claiming it to be a derivative of the word 'jizz'...and we all know what that word means!
Here's an excerpt from a piece on John Lee Hooker's 'Boogie Chillun'.

...The axis of this song is the central indictment: "Boogie Chillun". Thus Hooker becomes the champion of similarly minded adolescents ... it is a challenge to the social norms represented by parental control. Although the situation is clearly ludicrous in its account of serious angst about whether or not their son should boogie-woogie, there is within this domestic drama enough of the griot and the bluesman to remain recognisable into the contemporary age. It’s never made clear what ‘boogie’ means, but in the sense that it means staying up all night long, it signifies some kind of opposition to control. In Hooker’s mind, it may well have meant an alternative to the kind of control intended by the church.

Inconclusive, but what the hell.

[vodkatonique]

thanx :D , though I'm even more confused now. :lol: :lol:

[NickNack]

Never thought of the word, or the phrase ' boogie woogie', as having sexual conotations. Always took it as meaning having a good time on the dance floor. Hollywood fostered that image from the beginning. From it's toughest Brando / James Dean images to the gum-chewing girls in skirts and saddle shoes hanging out past curfew, "to boogie" meant to dance.

[QUINNY]

I've always thought that Boogie as opposed to Boogie Woogie could have sexual connotations. This was first evident to me during the hippie years, when there wasn't an awful lot of boogie or boogie woogie music to talk about, but the word sprang up in conversation and its meaning wasn't open to conjecture!

[beekeeper]

There are several meanings of the word "boogie", ranging from cigarette smoke, an ugly man to female genitalia. The generally accepted term is musical: instrumental version of the blues (usually piano). Madonna was more than likely referring to the rhythm of sex comparing it to the rhythm of music rather than a direct sexual connection

[peppertree5706]

That is a good question.

First, I would like to give the preferred disco euphemism for the "F" word or for sex relations. The word is JUMP. The group which liked to use it most was the studio group Musique. I saw a concert near Philadelphia and they changed the lyric in, "Keep On Jumpin'." Jumpin' was removed and the word beginning with "F" was inserted (pardon the pun).

Boogie has a history going back to Boogie Woogie in the late thirties. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (from company B) was a hit by the Andrew Sisters around 1942?.

Boogie was used right into the era of early rock and roll. A favorite user of the word Boogie was Bill Haley and his Comets. Boogie was common in lyrics until about 1962. It then disappeared from music until the early disco era.

Around 1974 Boogie came back in songs such as, "I'm Your Boogie Man," "Boogie Nights," and "Blame It On The Boogie." Also, "Get Up and Boogie."

I always thought of Boogie as meaning dance, party or good time. Not sexual. There was a 1959 song called, "Baby Sittin' Boogie," by Buzz Clifford which included baby noises. I know that was not sexual. "Boogie Fever," was about dancing if you put it in lyrical context.

Much of my information, I learned from a feature on WCBS-FM when Bob Shannon hosted the CBS-FM Hall Of Fame from 10-11PM. He did a show on "boogie" records and was able to mix fifties and seventies songs with "boogie" in the title. That show was on around 1984.

[vodkatonique]

Thanks everyone. I got a pretty comprehensive view. :) And my conclusion is that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[Greg Wilson]

"Boogie" seems to come, via a circuitous route, from the Latin Bulgarus, an inhabitant of Bulgaria. The Old French term boulgre was used to refer to a member of a sect of 11th-century Bulgarian heretics, and "bougre" first appears in the English writing in 1340 as a synonym for "heretic." By the 16th century, "bougre" grew into "bugger," a practitioner of vile and despicable acts including "buggery," or sodomy. "Bogy" (or "bogie") first appears in the 19th century as an appellation for the devil; later it came to be used for hobgoblins in general. Hence, the bogeyman, which may be the source of the use of "bogey" and "boogies" to mean "Negro". Shortly after these usages became common (in the 1920s), there appeared boogie woogie music, and I guess you can figure out the rest.(American columnist, Cecil Adams)

Taken from The Building Blocks Of Boogie:
The Building Blocks of Boogie

[The Boogie Doctor]

There is no one meaning for the term boogie. Whilst it may usually refer to a particular phenomena, namely, dancing, it, like all other words, are symbols, that is, they are vehicles through and into which people infuse meaning. It is interesting, however, that terms with musical bearing, such as boogie, dance, funk, are frequently loaded with sexual connotations. There was surely a lot more behind Bowie's imploration of 'Let's Dance'; Prince clearly meant something else in addition to dancing when he said in 'Erotic City' that 'we can funk until the dawn.' The ambiguity of and gaps in the referential meaning of the terms comes to be infused with sexualised meanings attached to embodied activities typically associated with dancing and hedonism.

[wever]

yeah! the only thing i knew about the word boogie is maybe the music called boogie woogie that appeared after Ragtime (i'm not sure of it ¿?¿?) which i think is like a danceable blues based on the piano:
Boogie-woogie is a style of piano-based blues that became very popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but originated much earlier, and was extended from piano, to three pianos at once, guitar, big band, and country and western music, and even gospel. Whilst the bluesdancing. The lyrics of one of the very earliest, "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie", consist entirely of instructions to dancers: traditionally depicts sadness and sorrow, boogie-woogie is associated with
Now, when I tell you to hold it, I don't want you to move a thing.And when I tell you to get it, I want you to Boogie Woogie! It is characterized by a regular bass figure, an ostinato and the most familiar example of shifts of level, in the left hand which elaborates on each chord, and trills and decorations from the right hand. It is not strictly a solo piano style, but is also used to accompany singers and as a solo part in bands and small combos. It is sometimes called eight to the bar, as much of it is written in common (4/4) time using eighth notes (quavers). For the most part, boogie-woogie tunes are twelve-bar blues, although the style has been applied to popular songs like "Swannee River" and hymns like "(Just a) Closer Walk with Thee."

Boogie-woogie (music) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

so it has to do with the dance thing....
But I also believe in de sexual connotations.... everything in music has something to do with sex and moreover if it's a physical response like the dancing act. I read somewhere that "funk" is the smell you have before the sexual act or "mojo" as the pen*s (can i say that?), but i don't remember where i found it.