“You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught” – SOUTH PACIFIC (1958)

Monday, June 8, 2020
“You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught” – SOUTH PACIFIC Oscar Hammerstein introduces the song, “You’ve Got to be Taught,” during Brotherhood Week in the United States. Part of the reason why South Pacific is considered a classic is its confrontation of racism… “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s attempt to use the Broadway theater to make a courageous statement against racial bigotry in general and institutional racism in the postwar United States in particular” forms part of South Pacific’s legend… Michener recalled in his memoirs that a delegation of New Englanders had approached him after a New Haven tryout and urged him to recommend the song’s removal to Rodgers and Hammerstein. When Michener told Hammerstein, he laughed and replied, “That’s what the show is about!” – From Wikipedia