The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

Chapter 8 - Categorization of Rituals 699
Ray Stevens has written a satirical pop song called "Shriner's Convention"
which we will give in full here because it neatly mirrors the impression the
Shriners - supposed to be the "pillars of the community" - leave before the
American public. It is about an exasperated Illustrious Potentate trying to keep a
lid on his overzealous party animal lodgemate. The song has the outer form of a
telephone conversation during different times of the day between two Shriners,
the Illustrious Potentate, called Bubba, and the Noble Lumpkin, called Coy,
during the 43 rd Annual Convention of the Grand Mystic Royal Order of the
Nobles of the Ali Baba Temple of the Shrine. The audience only gets to hear the
Illustrious Potentate, whose language gets worse each time, but knows exactly
what abominable things the Shriner on the other side of the line is just doing. For
these acts he is going to be excluded from the Shrine ("blackballed"). But having
to give back his ring and tie-tack seemingly does not affect Coy very much since
he can still join the "Hell's Angels" in order to have even more fun.
Ray Stevens recorded this song in 1980. He has written it from actual
experience: finishing a concert in Atlanta, Stevens and his band had booked
rooms at a local hotel where the Shriners were headquartering for their
convention, occupying 99% of the hotel rooms. The Shriners kept Stevens up all
night rocking and rolling, so that the song writer took revenge:
They had motorcycles in the halls and all this kind of stuff. I thought to
myself, these guys - I'm going to get them. I'm going to write a song
about them. I called them up when I finished the song, and said, 'I'm
going to put this record out, and I don't want you to be offended, as a
matter of fact, I'll donate a portion of the artists' royalties to your
charities, and if you'll support the record, I think it'll help your visibility
and increase the success of your charities.' And they went for it. 1706
Stevens was often asked whether the Shriners were mad at him for putting
out that record, but he could always answer: "Heck no, they loved it, and they
still do to this day." 1707 He confesses that he is neither a Shriner, nor a big joiner.
About his popularity among the Shriners, Stevens proudly states: "I don't know if
I ever played in a Shriner hall before 1980, but after the 'Shriner's Convention'
record came out, I played a lot of Shriner halls." 1708
In his song, Ray Stevens plays with the antithesis of the high pretensions and
the base vocabulary and activities of this "typical American phenomenon":
1706 Quoted from http://members.aol.com/boardwalk7/stevens/stevens.html
1707 Ibid.
1708 Ibid.