Remembering the Social Worker from West Side Story's Song, "Gee, Officer Krupke"

I was playing around on iTunes last night and stumbled across the soundtrack to "West Side Story." It occurred to me that I used to listen to this soundtrack as a vinyl record within my parents' collection. Actually, I'm pretty sure that I have the original album downstairs in my living room right now. I bring this up because I think that I first heard about social workers while listening to this album.

"West Side Story" has a song in it titled "Gee, Officer Krupke." And I loved listening to it as a young child. I mean, it's fast-paced. It's got a memorable refrain. And it has lots of funny singing voices. Why wouldn't a young child love it?

But it's also the first time that I ever heard the work "social worker.""Gee, Officer Krupke" was a humorous song about the societal forces that led the guys into joining a gang. Action and the other Jets run around singing as Officer Krupke, a judge, a psychiatrist, and eventually a social worker. In the song, Action is sent by the psychiatrist to find a social worker because society had played a terrible trick on him and Action just needs a good honest job to straighten out his life.


Which leads into this not-so-nice interaction with a "social worker":

ACTION
Dear kindly social worker,
They say go earn a buck.
Like be a soda jerker,
Which means like be a schumck.
It's not I'm anti-social,
I'm only anti-work.
Gloryosky! That's why I'm a jerk!

BABY JOHN: (As Female Social Worker)
Eek! Officer Krupke, you've done it again.
This boy don't need a job, he needs a year in the pen.
It ain't just a question of misunderstood;
Deep down inside him, he's no good!

ACTION I'm no good!

ALL We're no good, we're no good!
We're no earthly good,
Like the best of us is no damn good!

And then the social worker calls Action "lazy" later on in the song.

You can watch a performance of this song at this link.

Of course, I really had no idea about what a social worker was when I first listened to this song. Nor did I really appreciate the judgement-laced scorn coming from the mouth of this social worker character. Of course, the scorn was really self-directed and the Jets' own views about how a social worker might perceive their collective societal worth.

I know that social workers aren't perfect. But I cannot help wondering how many people see social workers enter their lives and perceive that the social worker sees nothing but bad. I'm sure that it's quite a lot.

Anyway, that's my earliest memory of social workers.