Entry · catalog no. 3603
the Mess Around
/ /ðə ˈmɛs əˌraʊnd/ /thuh MESS uh-rownd
noun · The Black South and the TOBA circuit · 1920s
✓ Verified
1.
A step danced in place: the feet stay put while the hips rotate and grind, hands at the waist. One of the named figures inside the Black Bottom.
“Hands on your hips and mess around — the feet ain't got nothing to do with it.”
2.
By extension, to dance loose and unbothered, without steps.
“Come on now, everybody mess around.”
Origin & Attribution
Black South and the Black vaudeville and TOBA circuit, carried north in the 1920s as one of the named figures inside the Black Bottom. Perry Bradford, who put the instructions in print, located the Black Bottom in an Atlanta neighborhood; other accounts place it in Jacksonville. Two corrections. First the date: the sheet music that prints the instruction to put your hands on your hips and do the Mess Around is copyrighted 5 August 1926, not 1919 — the earlier date traces to Bradford himself, documented elsewhere as having enlarged his own role in early blues. Second the crossover: Ray Charles's 1953 record carried the phrase to a national audience but was written by Atlantic's Ahmet Ertegun under a pen name, and neither man originated the step.
1926
Perry Bradford and Gus Horsley copyright "The Original Black Bottom Dance," whose printed instructions name the Mess Around
1929
Messin' Around, music by James P. Johnson and lyrics by Bradford, opens at the Hudson Theatre on 22 April
1953
Ray Charles records "Mess Around" for Atlantic on 17 May
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
The Black South and the TOBA circuit · 1920s
Spoken by
Black dancers on the Southern and TOBA circuits, then Harlem and Chicago dance halls
$THEMESThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Historical27 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
35/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1926
in the culture
Mainstream crossover
1953
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
Perry Bradford and Gus Horsley, "The Original Black Bottom Dance," copyright 5 August 1926
sheet music
■
Perry Bradford and His Gang, "Original Black Bottom Dance," 1926
record
■
Messin' Around, Hudson Theatre, New York, opened 22 April 1929
stage musical
■
+ Cite a sourceRay Charles, "Mess Around," Atlantic 999, recorded 17 May 1953
record
See also