User talk:2605:A601:AC77:8F00:8449:BB34:CEFD:6C87

Removed paragraph "In some versions of the song, the line "Boy, you can give me a shine." is replaced by "That's on the Tennessee line." This is often done on modern performances to avoid the racial overtones of the original, however it was done even in early days when a woman was the singer, as shoeshine customers were almost exclusively men. The line "Pardon me, boy," is often replaced with "Pardon me, boys," for the same reason."

The song is over 80 years old and has been covered more times than a bed, so it shouldn't be hard to find references to support this. Without them, it is nothing more than a retcon, seen through lenses of current events. The men who wrote it were immigrants who lived in New York City, where it was common to refer to everyone under a certain age or size as "boy," not just young black children... not to mention that most shoe shine boys, or shoe blacks as they were also called, weren't black kids, but immigrant kids.