Wooly Bullies: No Longer a Hit

When I was a teenager, Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs burst onto the scene with their huge hit Wooly Bully. The lyrics were hard to make out and hard to discern even if you made them out. It’s clear that Sam and his Pharaohs weren’t singing about bullies at school or work, but they could have been.

The recent news about nine teens being indicted in Massachusetts for bullying a classmate until she committed suicide caused me to think about previous posts I’ve written on the subject (here, here, here, here) and to revisit Wooly Bully’s lyrics. “Matty told Hatty about a thing she saw. Had two big horns and a wooly jaw . . . . Hatty told Matty, ‘Let’s don’t take no chance. Let’s not be L-seven, come and learn to dance.’”

A bully is scary and might as well have two big horns and a wooly jaw. Don’t take a chance with a bully. Don’t be L-seven, which apparently means “a square.” You must fit in, but the problem is that once on a bully’s list, you can’t fit in. Unless stopped, the bully will continue, and the target will never be L-seven.

The most troubling thing about bullying at school or work is that teachers, administrators, supervisors and executives know about the bullying but don’t stop it. Thus, state legislatures have begun passing laws to address the subject. These laws are problematic, because bullying is difficult to define. Ill-defined laws are often passed, however, when those in charge fail to act responsibly.

Schools and employers don’t need a law that says bullying is bad. They need leaders who will take the bully by the horns. Bullying is personally damaging to the victim and causes bad morale and low productivity. If it’s happening in your workplace, stop it. Otherwise, you could end up involved in a crime.