Pants on the Ground

The breakthrough star of the last relevant season of "American Idol" (before Simon leaves) is General Larry Platt. Not a military general, he earned that mythical title during his battles in the civil rights movement.

His now famous "Pants on the Ground" was inspired three years ago when he saw a guy walking down a downtown Atlanta street with a baby in his arm and his pants slipping below his hips. “He had his underwear showing,” Platt recalled. The song came to him spontaneously. He started chanting the chorus to “Pants on the Ground.” “He was being disrespectful so I wanted to embarrass him,” Platt said. “He rolled his eyes and pulled his pants up a little bit.”



The song sure is catchy, and a 62-year-old trying out for Idol is a little goofy as is the song itself. But not lost in the goofiness is the social message in the song. Young African-American men won't be taken seriously in society so long as they are "walking downtown with [their] pants on the ground."


As is always the case on the internet the song has created numerous copycats, starting with Jimmy Fallon's version as Neil Young:



Then there was Brett Favre singing it in the Vikings locker room after beating the Cowboys.