song from south pacific you've got to be carefully taught.
song from south pacific you've got to be carefully taught.
song from south pacific you've got to be carefully taught?
south pacific
you've got to be carefully taught









































"you've got to be carefully taught" (sometimes "you've got to be taught" or "carefully taught") is a show tune from the 1949 rodgers and hammerstein musical "south pacific".
you've got to be carefully taught
at the heart of this scene is cable's song "you've got to be carefully taught", in which cable realizes the sources of his own racism. its frank lyrics made it perhaps the most controversial element of the show. michener recalled in his memoirs that a delegation of new englanders had approached him after a new haven tryout and urged him to recommend the song's removal to rodgers and hammerstein. when michener told hammerstein, he laughed and replied, "that's what the show is about!" boston drama critic elliot norton, after seeing the show in tryouts, strongly recommended its removal, or at least that cable sing it less "briskly", as there was much bigotry in boston; logan replied that that was all the more reason for leaving it unaltered. several new york reviewers expressed discomfort with the song; wolcott gibbs wrote of "something called 'you've got to be taught', a poem in praise of tolerance that somehow i found a little embarrassing" while john mason brown opined that he was "somewhat distressed by the dragged-in didacticism of such a plea for tolerance as 'you've got to be taught'". after the broadway opening, hammerstein received a large number of letters concerning "you've got to be carefully taught". judging by the letters that remain among his papers in the library of congress, the reaction was mixed. one correspondent wrote "what can i say to a man who writes, 'you've got to be taught to hate and fear?' ... now that i know you, i feel that my informants didn't praise you enough." nevertheless, another wrote, "i feel the inclusion of the song particularly in the album and to some extent in the show itself is not helpful to the cause of brotherhood, your intent to the contrary notwithstanding".
south pacific (musical)