This oddly evocative noun might summon in the mind some tactile, earthy image, or a strange childrens’ TV fictional character, but actually pertains to a person who is politically neutral, aloof, or independent, and in 19th-century America, described anti-corruption party switchers. They are also portrayed as sexually ambiguous, sugar-sucking monsters in the fantastical 1959 novel The Naked Lunch, by American author William S. Burroughs:
“On stools covered in white satin sit naked Mugwumps sucking translucent, colored syrups through alabaster straws. Mugwumps have no liver and nourish themselves exclusively on sweets. Thin, purple-blue lips cover a razor-sharp beak of black bone with which they frequently tear each other to shreds in fights over clients. These creatures secrete an addicting fluid from their erect penises which prolongs life by slowing metabolism.”
The etymology of the word comes from a Massachusetts Algonquian indigenous word mugquomp, or muggumquomp, meaning war leader, creating the obsolete slang mugwump or kingpin. But the first known use came in 1884, and pertains to political activists angered by corruption, in particular the political patronage, also known as the spoils system, associated with Republican Party candidate James G. Blaine. The mugwumps instead chose to supported the Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland in the 1884 United States presidential election.
An 1884 cartoon by Bernhard Gillam in Puck magazine which ridicules James G. Blaine as the man tattooed with many indelible scandals, leading to the rise of mugwumps
Famous mugwumps included the authors Henry Adams and Mark Twain, and the political cartoonist Thomas Nast. In a deeply divided and corrupt world, it seems that principled mugwumps are rare these days, and perhpas that’s in part due to the ironic, derogatory nature of the term. But where does the word appear in song? Here are a few examples, an eclectic selection including June Carter and Carl Smith, The Mamas & The Papas, and some of the strange soundtrack from David Cronenberg’s 1991 film adaptation of Naked Lunch:
Sitting on the fence, or able to commit to some mugwump-related ideas? Feel free to share anything more in relation to it, whether in music or wider culture, such as from film, art, or other contexts, in comments below.
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