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A jelly roll is a term used in the United States for some forms of swiss roll.
The term jelly roll is also sexual slang, used to indicate variously a lover, intercourse, or the sexual parts. According to the book The Story of English, "On the street, jelly roll had many associated meanings, from the respectable 'lover, or spouse', to the Harlem slang of the 1930s, 'a term for the vagina'." * In blues usage, however, the cylindrical pastry was at least as easily used as a metaphor for the phallus.
The book Blues Fell This Morning: Meaning in the Blues cites a recording by Peg Leg Howell and His Gang as an example of sexual metaphor in the blues:
- Jelly-roll, jelly-roll, ain't so hard to find.
- Ain't a baker shop in town bake 'em brown like mine
- I got a sweet jelly, a lovin' sweet jelly roll,
- If you taste my jelly, it'll satisfy your worried soul *
The expression appears in numerous blues and jazz songs, such as "I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None of This Jelly Roll" by Clarence Williams, which was recorded by Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, and many other singers in the 1920s; Billy Eckstine's "Jelly, Jelly" from the 1940s, with the line "Jelly roll killed my pappy, and run my mother stone blind"; and "Jelly Roll" by Nina Simone in the 1970s ("I could go for a ride on your sweet jelly roll/ But I wouldn't give nothing for my juicy, juicy soul"). The phrase is best remembered from the nickname of early jazz bandleader Jelly Roll Morton.
Van Morrison included the term in numerous songs, such as "And It Stoned Me" and "He Ain't Give You None". The term is also used repeatedly in the Grateful Dead song "Dupree's Diamond Blues". Sonic Youth's "Dirty Boots" describes "all the girls there playin' on a jelly roll," and declares that it's "time to rock the road/And tell the story of the jelly rollin'." *
See also
External link
"Jelly roll"